“And what sort of a looking fellow was it you say that rode you down?”
“A tall, blonde fellow—an officer evidently.—Good God! Mrs. Beverley, what is the matter?” For the color had dropped out of Judith’s face as the mercury drops out of the tube, and she was gazing with wide, wild eyes at Throckmorton. How often had she heard that grewsome story—even that the plunging horse was a sorrel! But at least Freke should not see her break down. She heard herself saying, in a strange, unnatural voice:
“Nothing. I think it is too warm for me in here.” Throckmorton took her by the arm and led her back into the hall, and to a small window which he opened. He felt like a brute for mentioning anything connected with the war—of course it must be intensely painful to Judith—but she stopped his earnest apologies with a word.
“Don’t blame yourself—pray, don’t. It was very warm—and Freke—oh, how I hate him!”
Throckmorton had been afraid she was going to faint, but the energy with which she brought out her last remark convinced him there was no danger. It brought the blood surging back to her face in a torrent.
Nobody else had known anything of the little scene in the conservatory; and then Throckmorton had to show Jacqueline over it, and Judith caught sight of him, standing in one of his easy and graceful attitudes, leaning over Jacqueline in expressive pantomime; and then came the general’s big, musical voice: “My love, it is now past eleven o’clock; we must not trespass on Throckmorton’s hospitality.” Throckmorton felt at that moment as if the evening had just begun; while to Judith it seemed as if there was a stretch of years of pain between the dawn and the midnight of that day—a pain secret but consuming.
There was the bustle of departure, during which Judith managed to say to Freke:
“You have had your revenge—perfect but complete.”
“That’s for calling me a liar,” was Freke’s reply. It was, moreover, for something that Judith had made him suffer—absurd as it was that any woman could make Temple Freke suffer. But, after what he had seen that night, he reflected that it was perhaps a work of supererogation to build a barrier between Judith and Throckmorton. The major had other views.