It took no very vigorous imagination, either, to fancy his mother’s anxious inquiry for the truant, and the subsequent comment on the situation. Even in the solitude of the library William’s face burned. He was bewildered, too. He knew that he had reached a crisis, and he did not know how to deal with it. To do anything seemed only to publish his own misery. He had telephoned twice to the livery-stable already, and been assured that Mrs. Carter’s horse was still out.
He had no idea where she had gone, and to follow, even in a motor, would be senseless enough. It was a fine night; a full moon lighted the roads. If she meant to return, she could get home so easily that he could not believe she intended to do so.
As for Corwin, William had only seen the man two or three times, and was cognizant of the gossip only through his father. People didn’t talk to him.
His father had seen Corwin follow Fanchon, but had Fanchon planned it all? Or had the man—a hard, coarse-looking brute—pursued her without any invitation, without her consent? William Carter did not know; he only felt a blind rage that he had suddenly been forced to doubt his wife. It was hideous—simply hideous!
They had been quarreling lately nearly all the time—petty quarrels. Fanchon evidently hated the place, she seemed to hate even her husband’s people, and he had found her becoming wilder and stranger every day. He knew she longed to go back to Paris, or at least to New York; but William had never brought his mind to consider even the possibility that she was disloyal, or could be. He could not believe it now, but he found that the conviction was deep-rooted in his father’s mind, and he saw it in his mother’s kind, worried eyes.
What had they heard? He did not know—at least he was sure he did not know it all. He saw something of it in Leigh’s white face to-night. The boy was fond of Fanchon. William felt relief to think that at least one member of his family liked her.
He watched the clock until the hands indicated midnight. Where could she be? He walked the floor again.
Unobserved, he could give way to his agony of mind. Had there been an accident? Had Fanchon been hurt?
The suspense was fast becoming a deep and keen agony. He was shaken. He knew that his thoughts had wandered to Virginia, to the peace he might have had. Had Fanchon seen it? Was she tormenting him in a wild fit of jealousy, or—intolerable and monstrous thought!—his wife in flight with a man who looked to him to be no more than a common gamester?
How still it was! Through the open window the soft night air poured in; and now it had a difference, a perceptible quickening, the keenness of the morning. It was nearly one o’clock.