Emma no longer came downstairs; from the little drawing room I heard her busy with her futile amusements in the lay-figure room. Her little sharp heels went tap, tap, tap on the floor above. My nights were sleepless. The harassing idea of Lerne and Emma together kept me awake.
I tried to go out once, to take a walk in the cool of the night, and so weary out my body. All the doors down below were locked.
Ah! Lerne was keeping a good watch on me.
However, the imprudence I had committed in revealing my discovery of Macbeth had no other apparent result than a renewal of his friendship. In our walks which had now become more frequent, he seemed to take more and more pleasure in my society, endeavoring to mitigate the rigor of my spy-haunted life, and thus to keep me at Fonval, whether it was really to train an associate for himself, or merely to guard against the risk of an escape. His attentions annoyed me.
This was the period when, without it seeming to be so, I was more carefully watched than before. My days were filled in a way which I disliked. I was eaten up with impatience, between love on the one hand, and mystery on the other—both forbidden ground for me. Though love for a pretty woman, who was inaccessible, called me in one direction, the mystery also attracted me as imperiously in the other—that mystery which was represented by an old boot.
This filthy elastic-sided boot served as a basis for all the theories which I built up at night, in the hope of calming my jealousy by curiosity. It constituted, indeed, the one clear goal to which my indiscretions could tend.
I had noted that the tool-house stood near the clearing, and that was convenient for any attempt to unearth the boot—and whatever else there might be—but Lerne’s displays of affection kept me pitilessly away from the hothouse, the laboratory, Emma, and everything else.
So I ardently longed for something or other new to happen, which should revolutionize our relations, and give me a chance of escaping from the vigilance of my guardians,—a sudden journey of Lerne to Nanthel—an accident, anything from which I could derive some advantage.
This windfall was the arrival of the two Macbeths—father and son.
My uncle having been informed of their arrival by telegram, announced it to me with an outburst of delight.