"Let me pass! I'll have nothing to say to you! Get out of my way!"
"Still one moment, Miss Harding, if you please. I heard you ask Mr. Nash to marry you, which was rather 'coming on,' to use a kitchen phrase, wasn't it? Luckily he declined; the anxiety was plainly all on your side; or I should have objected."
"You would have objected! Do you suppose I should ask your permission?"
"If you didn't, and I did object, on your wedding-day I'd have you arrested at the church door; and if your husband was Herbert Nash that would be the last you'd see of him. When you came out of jail he'd slam the door in your face, unless I mistake the man, and he'd stick up a notice in his front garden, 'No convicted felons need apply.' It's not my wish to be disagreeable, Miss Harding, quite the other way; but I've a feeling that you don't want to treat me fairly; and in matters of this sort both sides expect fair treatment, it's only natural. I can tell you, at this moment, exactly what I propose, as Herbert Nash put it; I want time to find out where I'm standing; as you must see for yourself, everything's at sixes and sevens. But I can tell you what I don't propose; that you should hand over that three thousand pounds to a man who doesn't deserve it. You catch what I mean? I fancy you will if you think it over." He glanced at his watch. "Now I am afraid that I must go; if you go straight home you'll have plenty of time to tittivate; and I do trust, Miss Harding, that, at dinner, you'll be once more the charming, lively, high-spirited young lady I've always loved to rest my eyes upon."
When the gong sounded for dinner Miss Lindsay was informed, by the butler, that although Miss Harding had been out, and had returned, she had sent down word that her headache was still so bad that she wanted nothing to eat, and preferred to remain in her own room. Whereupon Nora went up-stairs to make inquiries on her own account. She found the young lady's door was locked. Having tapped twice without eliciting a response, the third time she knocked more peremptorily, exclaiming--
"Elaine! please let me in! it's Nora."
A shrill voice cried out within.
"I can't let you in! I won't! I only want people to let me alone."
Wondering, Nora let her alone, and went down to a solitary dinner; while Elaine lay face downward on the bed, wildly asking herself if suicide was not the best way out of it.
That night there came to Nora still another variation of the dream which she had dreamed before. Throughout the day she had been conscious of a sense of curious depression; as if she was realizing, for the first time, how wholly alone in the world she was, and was likely to remain. She had said good-bye to the man she loved; Mr. Spencer's story of the envelope which her father had sent him was an odd one; but the envelope was lost. She resented with a bitterness of which she had not imagined herself capable the fact that he had lost it; she had not put her bitterness into words, she had not wished to reproach him; it was contrary to her nature to reproach any one; but it had seemed to her the hardest blow which fate had dealt her yet, and that it should have come from him! If the envelope were found it was possible that it might contain the key to the mystery of Donald Lindsay's money; so that it would be shown that she was, after all, pecuniarily, in the fortunate position her father had led her to suppose she would be. But, to begin with, it had to be found. It seemed that its loser had already been making strenuous efforts to recover it, without success; if it was to be retrieved surely it was most likely to be the case when the scent was hot. What reason was there to suppose that the search which had failed when the conditions were more favourable was likely to have a more satisfactory result now that everything was against it? Even if the envelope was regained there was still the--should she say probability, or possibility?--that its contents might lead to nothing after all. Disappointments had crowded on her so fast lately that it would only be in the natural order of things if she was to be visited by yet another.