A spasm of pain crossed his face; there was a momentary contraction of the muscles of his mouth.
"She will not return to Cheshire. All her life she will lie under the ban of murder."
"And she is innocent?"
He looked up at her—a strange, hunted, tortured sort of look.
"She is innocent."
As he made the answer he turned abruptly away. Edith asked no more questions. The secret of his mother's murder was a secret she was not to hear.
Lady Helena did not make her appearance at all in the lower rooms, that night. Next day at luncheon she came down, and Edith was honestly shocked at the change in her. From a hale, handsome, stately, upright, elderly lady, she had become a feeble old woman in the past week. Her step had grown uncertain; her hands trembled; deep lines of trouble were scored on her pale face; her eyes rarely wandered long from her nephew's face. Her voice took a softer, tenderer tone when she addressed him—she had always loved him dearly, but never so dearly, it would seem, as now.
The change in Sir Victor was more in manner than in look. A feverish impatience and restlessness appeared to have taken possession of him; he wandered about the house and in and out like some restless ghost. From Powyss Place to Catheron Royals, from Catheron Royals to Powyss Place, he vibrated like a human pendulum. It set Edith's nerves on edge only to watch him. At other periods a moody gloom would fall upon him, then for hours he sat brooding, brooding, with knitted brows and downcast eyes, lost in his own dark, secret thoughts. Anon his spirits would rise to fever height, and he would laugh and talk in a wild, excited way that fixed Edith's dark, wondering eyes solemnly on his flushed face.
With it all, in whatever mood, he could not bear her out of his sight. He haunted her like her shadow, until it grew almost intolerable. He sat for hours, while she worked, or played, or read, not speaking, not stirring—his eyes fixed upon her, and she, who had never been nervous, grew horribly nervous under this ordeal. Was Sir Victor losing his wits? Now that his insane father was dead and buried, did he feel it incumbent upon him to keep up the family reputation and follow in that father's footsteps?
And the days wore on, and the first of October came.