Raymond looked round her. There was a caressing quality in her glance.
“Yes; I’ll come downstairs,” she said.
This was Anthony’s room. She would not talk to another man in Anthony’s room. The thought may have been in her mind. The breath of it beat on Ember’s flames and fanned them higher still. He led the way downstairs and into Sir William’s study.
Raymond Heritage had passed from the despairing mood of her first interview with Anthony. Then to know him alive and to feel him unforgiving had stabbed her to the quick. But that phase had passed. During the many hours that she had spent alone the one amazing radiant thought that he was alive had come to dominate everything. The cold finality of death had been lifted. Instead of a blank wall, there opened before her an infinite number of ways, any one of which might lead her back to her lost happiness. She began to live in the past, to go over the old times, to make a dream her companion.
She came into the study with Ember and waited to hear what he wanted, giving him just that surface attention which he recognised and resented. His first words were meant to startle her.
“Lady Heritage,” he said, “you know, of course, that there are certain passages and rooms under this house?”
She did start a little, he thought. Certainly her attention deepened.
“Who told you that, Jeffrey?” she said, and hardly heard her own voice because Anthony’s rang in her ears insisting, “I know that you told Ember.”
“Mr. Luttrell told me,” said Ember.
She exclaimed incredulously. At least her thoughts were not wandering now. Ember felt a certain triumph as he realised it. He went on speaking quite quietly: