After sitting down for a moment or two, he rose and moved about restlessly, and then he said—
"I have to find some papers; where did your husband keep his papers?" Without expecting an answer, he said, "Oh, I know, in his writing-table drawers." And, without waiting for her to speak, he went into her husband's room, and she heard him lock the door.
Mrs. Dorriman rose, and, filling the skirt of her dress with some of the papers, she made silent and successive journeys to her own bedroom, where she concealed all, hastily throwing some skeins of worsted into the empty box, and once again sat down. She knew nothing—but there must be some reason for her brother's anxiety, and she had suffered so much at his hands that her whole instinct was alive in self-defence.
But a timid woman does not act in this way for the first time in her life without betraying something of the agitation into which it had thrown her.
When Mr. Sandford, with angry and baffled eyes, came back to her, he saw something in her face which roused his suspicions. To have put the suspicion into words would have perhaps roused hers, but from that moment the poor woman's dream of a peaceful life at Inchbrae with no one to dread, was a dream that had no foundation. He went away a day or two afterwards, and she lulled herself into a belief of contentment. So soon as Mr. Sandford's plans were made, though it took weeks and months to arrange them, he summoned her to his house. Certain in his own mind that she had concealed those papers, he determined to have such a hold over her as would give him the power of getting them into his own hands, if they were there.
In the meantime the fruits of her visits to the Macfarlanes appeared in the letter which she sent to Mr. Sandford next day.
"Dear Brother," she wrote,
"I am quite willing to go and keep house for you for a time, but I will let my house and prefer not selling it; I like the place and do not wish to part with it.
"When I have made my arrangements I and my maid will go to you. I will write again when I know the day and hour on which I can leave.
"Your affectionate
"Sister Susan."
She felt happier when she had thus boldly asserted her freedom of choice.
Two days came and went, two lovely autumnal days, during which poor Mrs. Dorriman, instead of preparing to depart, wandered over the little place, every nook and corner of which was sweet to her at all times, and was doubly dear to her now she was going away. Late in the afternoon of the third day she was walking down the burn-side, stopping ever and again to look with renewed admiration at the scenery round her, and watching the purple bloom upon the distant hills as the evening shadows came down, a purple tinge which was reflected in the sea except where a blaze of gold in the sky shone with more broken lights below; the sun was low behind the hills, and heavy clouds speaking of rain to come were lowering in fine contrast with the vivid light lying between them and the hills. The sea-birds were agitated and astir; from the open sea upon her left came that hoarse strange murmur hurrying up like a relentless fate across the bosom of the sea. The light faded, grew less and less as the clouds descended, the wind increased in violence, and everything spoke of a coming storm.
Mrs. Dorriman saw the rain-clouds burst and stream down in the distance; she could not move, that curious foreshadowing of coming evil which we call presentiment made her cling to the spot. She heard herself called, she would not turn, she knew if she turned she would all the sooner hear what she did not want to hear. Then her faithful maid, the creature who cared more for her than any one, came up to her and touched her.