“What do you want?” asked Joy, striving in vain to keep her voice steady.
“What do I want?” there was an accent of mock surprise in Dick Bracknell’s voice as he echoed the question, and then he laughed again in a way that made the girl shiver. “What a question to ask a husband who has not seen his wife since his marriage morning! Really, my dear, such a question ought to be quite unnecessary.”
He broke off as his cough took him, and for perhaps half a minute he was shaken by it, and could not speak. When he resumed it was in a different tone.
“Sit down,” he said, “I want to talk to you, and there is no need that you stand on ceremony in your husband’s house. I regret the scarcity of chairs, but there is a log by the fire there—and if you will accept the advice of an expert you will throw off your furs.... You won’t? Well, self-will is one of the characteristics of your sex, and no doubt you will please yourself. But all the same allow me to express my gratitude to you that you should have left your home in mid-winter to come and look for me. Such solicitude is beyond what I had ex——”
“I was not looking for you,” Joy broke in. “You are the last person I was expecting to meet!”
“Is that so?” The mockery had gone out of Bracknell’s voice now, and there was a dangerous ring in it. The eyes in the haggard face were blazing, and to both the girls it was clear that he had much ado to keep himself in hand. “You dare to tell me that—me, your lawful husband? Perhaps you will tell me for whom you did leave your home then? Whom you were following and seeking on a winter trail?”
Joy felt her face flush suddenly. Could she tell him? she asked herself, and immediately her mind answered “No!” In the wild mood that was on him Dick Bracknell would be sure to put a false interpretation on any explanation that she might offer him. Realizing this she was silent, and a moment later he broke out again, wrathfully—
“You won’t tell me? You’re ashamed to tell me, I suppose. But accept my assurances that there is no need. I already know. My cousin Roger is the favoured man, is he not? You start at that! Then it is all true what I have heard, that not only is he to supplant me at Harrow Fell, but in my wife’s affections also? Well, that is not going to happen. I will have Harrow Fell and you also—and you first, my Joy, for there shall be no cuckoo in my nest.... Yes, I will have Harrow Fell. I can face five years at Portland or at Parkhurst for that. But first, I will have you. You are here, in your husband’s house, where you have come of your own accord, and here you remain. Take off your furs!”
To Joy it was clear that Dick Bracknell was almost insanely jealous, and her face blanched as the possibilities of the situation flashed themselves upon her. The man took a step forward as if to enforce his order, and she shrank back against the rough logs of the shack. Bracknell laughed savagely, but the next moment there came an intervention.