The state in which he was living, touching his wife's estrangement (not their separation, that was a present necessity), was getting unbearable; and Isaac, who had hitherto shunned an explanation, came to the rather sudden resolution of seeking it. Although his brother had shot Robert Hunter, it could not be said to be a just reason for Anna's resenting it upon him. Not a syllable did Isaac yet know of the discovery that had taken place, or that Cyril was the one lying in the churchyard.
In the free and simple community of Coastdown, doors were not kept closed, and people entered at will. Rather, then, to Isaac's surprise, as he turned the handle of Captain Copp's, he found it was fastened, so that he could not enter. At the same moment his eyes met his wife's, who had come to the window to reconnoitre. There was no help for it, and she had to go and let him in.
"At home alone, Anna! Where are they all? Where's Sarah?"
Anna explained: bare facts only, however, not motives. It appeared that the gallant captain, considerably lowered in his own estimation by the events of the past night, and especially that he should be so in the sight of his "womenkind," proposed a little jaunt that day to Jutpoint by way of diverting their thoughts, and perhaps his own, from the ghost and its reminiscences. His mother--recovered from her incipient cold--she was too strong-minded a woman for diseases to seize upon heartily--agreed readily, as did his wife. Not so Anna. She pleaded illness, and begged to be left at home. It was indeed no false plea, for her miserable state of mind was beginning to tell upon her. They had been expected home in time for tea, and had not come. Anna supposed they had contrived to miss the omnibus, which was in fact the case, and could not now return until late. How Mrs. Sam Copp would be brought by the churchyard was a thing easier wondered at than told. As to Sarah, she had but now stepped out on some necessary errands to the village.
In the satisfaction of finding the field undisturbed for the explanation he wished entered on, Isaac said nothing about his wife being left in the house alone, which he by no means approved of. It was not dark yet, only dusk: but Anna said something about getting lights.
"Not yet," said Isaac. "I want to talk to you; there's plenty of light for that."
She sat down on the sofa; trembling, frightened, sick. If her husband was the slayer of Robert Hunter--as she believed him to be--it was not agreeable to be in the solitary house with him; it was equally disagreeable to have to tell him to go out of it. Ah, but for that terrible belief, what a happy moment this snatch of intercourse might have been to them! this sole first chance for weeks and weeks of being alone, when they might speak together of future plans with a half-hour's freedom.
She took her seat on the sofa, scarcely conscious what she did in her sick perplexity. Isaac sat down by her, put his arm round her waist, and would have kissed her. But she drew to the other end of the large sofa with a gesture of evident avoidance, and burst into tears. So he got up and stood before her.
"Anna, this must end, one way or the other; it is what I came here to-night to say. The separated condition in which we first lived after our return was bad enough, but that was pleasant compared to what it afterwards became. It is some weeks now since you have allowed me barely to shake you by the hand; never if you could avoid it. Things cannot go on so."
She made no reply. Only sat there trembling and crying, her hands before her face.