“Mr. Harwood,” said Janet, “how should I know your family history? He is your father; any one can see that.”
“It is impossible,” said Dolff; “my father is dead.”
“Of course, I cannot know anything,” said Janet, with a cruel intention which she did not disguise from herself, with her lip a little raised over her white teeth like a fierce little animal at bay, “but I will tell you what I think. Your father has done something which made it better that he should be thought dead, and your mother has hidden him away and kept him a close prisoner all these years: but now it is all found out.”
“Done something—that made it better he should be thought dead!” Dolff turned so deadly pale that the girl’s heart smote her. The place seemed to turn round and round with him. He fell back against the wall as if he would have fallen. “You don’t mean that!—you don’t mean that!” he cried, piteously, stretching out his hands to her as if she could help it.
“Oh! forgive me, Mr. Dolff. I did not mean to hurt you so.”
“Never mind about hurting me,” he said, hoarsely. “Is it true?”
She made no reply; what did she know about it? Perhaps it was not true—but what else could any one think who was not a fool? If Dolff had not been a fool he would have known that it must be so. She stood confronting him for a minute while he stood there supporting himself against the wall, hiding his face in his hands. And then Janet left him, running upstairs to escape altogether from these family mysteries, with which she had nothing to do. It had been very interesting at first, full of excitement, like a story. But now Janet felt that it was a great consolation to have nothing really to do with it, to retire and leave these people to manage their own affairs. And she had in her veins an entirely new excitement, something of her own enough to occupy all her thoughts.
She ran upstairs, leaving Dolff in his dismay with his head hidden in his hands—what had she to do with that?—and fled to her comfortable room, where she sat down beside the blazing fire, and turned to her own affairs—they were important enough now to demand her full attention. Since she had written that letter, Janet herself had become subject to all the suspenses, the doubts and alarms of independent life. What would be thought of it? Would he still be in the same mind? Would he come to take her away? And oh, biggest and most serious of all her questions, if he did come, if he were still of the same mind, could she endure him—could she accept the fate which she had thus invited for herself? Janet had serious enough questions of her own to discuss with herself as she sat over the glowing fire.
Poor Dolff did not know how long he stood there, with his head against the wall. He was roused at last by the sound of a movement in the drawing-room, and presently the door opened, and a sort of procession came out. First of all, the strange new inmate of the house leaning upon Vicars, looking back and kissing his hand to the others behind him, who came crowding out in a group close to each other.
“I’ll come often now and sit an hour with you in the evening,” he said. “Now that everybody’s paid, I’ll live a new life. My children, don’t be frightened; I’ll take care of you all. For,” he said, stopping short, turning Vicars round by the arm, “I’m to have a wheeled chair and go out for an airing to-morrow. Hey, what do you think—an airing! That means it’s all paid and everything right.”