Suddenly he turned and seized her left arm. He brought her unresisting across the room, then dragged aside the heavy yellow curtains which had been drawn before the central window.
"Look over there, Catherine," he said meaningly. "Can you see the Eype? The moon gives but little light to-night, but the stars are bright. I can see a glimmer at yon window. They must be still waiting for James to come home."
"I see the glimmer you mean," she said dully. "No doubt they leave a lamp burning all night, as we do. James must have got home hours ago, Charles." She saw that the cuff of her husband's coat was also covered with dark, damp stains, and again she wondered uneasily what he had been doing out of doors.
"Catherine?" Charles Nagle turned her round, ungently, and forced her to look up into his face. "Have you ever thought what 'twould be like to live at the Eype?"
The question startled her. She roused herself to refute what she felt to be an unworthy accusation. "No, Charles," she said, looking at him steadily. "God is my witness that at no time did I think of living at the Eype! Such a wish never came to me——"
"Nor to me!" he cried, "nor to me, Catherine! All the long years that James Mottram was in Jamaica the thought never once came to me that he might die, and I survive him. After all we were much of an age, he had but two years the advantage of me. I always thought that the boy—my aunt's son, curse him!—would get it all. Then, had I thought of it—and I swear I never did think of it—I should have told myself that any day James might bring a wife to the Eype——"
He was staring through the leaded panes with an intent, eager gaze. "It is a fine house, Catherine, and commodious. Larger, airier than ours—though perhaps colder," he added thoughtfully. "Cold I always found it in winter when I used to stay there as a boy—colder than this house. You prefer Edgecombe, Catherine? If you were given a choice, is it here that you would live?" He looked at her, as if impatient for an answer.
"Every stone of Edgecombe, our home, is dear to me," she said solemnly. "I have never admired the Eype. It is too large, too cold for my taste. It stands too much exposed to the wind."
"It does! it does!" There was a note of regret in his voice. He let the curtain fall and looked about him rather wildly.
"And now, Charles," she said, "shall we not say our prayers and retire to rest."