They carried the news to Evelyn, who had scarcely left her room since this amazing adventure befell her. A brief account of the accident obtained from the lips of young Felix Horowitz, Count Odin's friend, narrated the simple circumstance that they had been driving from Moretown to Melbourne Hall and had collided upon the way with a hay-cart, whose driver, as the drivers of hay-carts so frequently will, had been taking his siesta during the heat of the day. Thrown from the box into the gutter, the coachman dislocated his shoulder and had many bruises to show; while his horse, terrified at the absence of control, instantly bolted in one of those blind panics which may overtake even the most docile of animals.
Such a story Felix Horowitz had told, but more he could not tell. Evelyn's anxious question as to the purport of Count Odin's visit remained unanswered. It was possible, the youth said, that the Count drove out to see Lord Melbourne. "But I should not be surprised," he added naïvely, "if there were a better reason which you must not expect me to confess."
She was afraid to press the point, nor dare she, at present, invite the confidence of one who was so great a stranger to her. Sooner or later it would be necessary to abase herself before this man who had thrust himself unluckily into her life and made such quick use of his advantages. Evelyn perceived immediately that she must go to Count Odin and say, "My father does not know that I am Etta Romney. Please do not tell him." And this was far from being the whole penalty of the accident. A glimmer of the truth could come to her already as a spectre which henceforth must haunt her life. She knew that her father had spent some years in Roumania, and that nothing would induce him to revisit that country wherein he had married Dora d'Istran. In the same breath, she told herself that this man was a Roumanian and acquainted with her father's story.
Had she been entirely honest with herself she would have gone on to admit a certain fascination in the mystery which she could neither account for nor take arms against. Count Odin was like no other man she had known. She had tried to deceive herself in London with the imagined belief that she never wished to see him again. Many times, however, since she had returned to Derbyshire this very desire would assert itself. She found herself, against her will and reason, covertly hoping that she might hear his story from his own lips. A psychologist would have held that there was a certain affinity between the two, and that she had become the victim of it unconsciously. Her fear was of a splendid fascination she had become aware of and could not resist. She imagined that she would obey this man if he commanded her, despite her resolute will and almost eccentric originality. And this she feared even more than her own secret.
It is to be imagined how the suspense of Count Odin's illness tried nerves as high strung as those of Evelyn, and with what expectation she awaited the hour when he would recover consciousness. Her desire had become that of knowing the worst as speedily as might be; and the worst she certainly would not know until consciousness returned and some good excuse might admit her to the sick man's room. Hourly, almost, she asked the news of Dr. Philips and received the strictly professional answer:
"An ordinary case—no cause for worry at all—don't think about it."
To the Doctor's inquiry what she knew of Count Odin she merely said that she had heard of him in London and believed that his father had been the Earl's friend many years ago. This did not in any way disguise her unrest, and the Doctor would have been more than human had he not put his own construction upon it.
"Head over ears in love with him," he told the Vicar that night; "why, sir, she would not deceive a blind man. She's met this fellow in London and bagged him like a wounded pheasant. I shouldn't wonder if it hadn't been all arranged between them—bolting horse and all. There he is, in the chaplain's room, rambling away in a tongue a Hottentot would be ashamed of, and she's waiting for me always on the stairs just ready to hug me for a good word. What do you make of it? You've married a few and ought to be an expert."
The Vicar shook his head at the compliment and declared that it would never suit the Earl.
"He hopes that she will never marry," he said; "he has told me so himself more than once. If she does marry, he has great ambitions. After all, she may only be naturally anxious. I dare say she's asking herself whether her own car did not do some of the mischief."