Creeping down softly she opened the door of the room behind the library, and glided in. It was a small room, used exclusively by Lord Hartledon, where he kept a heterogeneous collection of things—papers, books, cigars, pipes, guns, scientific models, anything—and which no one but himself ever attempted to enter. The intervening door between that and the library was not quite closed; and Lady Hartledon, cautiously pushed it a little further open. Wilful, unpardonable disobedience! when he had so strongly forbidden her! It was the same tall stranger. He was speaking in low tones, and Lord Hartledon leaned against the wall with a blank expression of face.
She saw; and heard. But how she controlled her feelings, how she remained and made no sign, she never knew. But that the instinct of self-esteem was one of her strongest passions, the dread of detection in proportion to it, she never had remained. There she was, and she could not get away again. The subtle dexterity which had served her in coming might desert her in returning. Had their senses been on the alert they might have heard her poor heart beating.
The interview did not last long—about twenty minutes; and whilst Lord Hartledon was attending his visitor to the door she escaped upstairs again, motioned away the nurse, and resumed her shoes. But what did she look like? Not like Maude Hartledon. Her face was as that of one upon whom some awful doom has fallen; her breath was coming painfully; and she kneeled down on the carpet and clasped her children to her beating heart with an action of wild despair.
"Oh, my boy! my boy! Oh, my little Maude!"
Suddenly she heard her husband's step approaching, and pushing them from her, rose and stood at the window, apparently looking out on the darkening world.
Lord Hartledon came in, gaily and cheerily, his manner lighter than it had been for years.
"Well, Maude, I have not been long, you see. Why don't you have lights?"
She did not answer: only stared straight out. Her husband approached her. "What are you looking at, Maude?"
"Nothing," she answered: "my head aches. I think I shall lie down until dinner-time. Eddie, open the door, and call Nurse, as loud as you can call."
The little boy obeyed, and the nurse returned, and was ordered to take the children. Lady Hartledon was following them to go to her own room, when she fell into a chair and went off in a dead faint.