She shrank from him as if he had been some leprous thing. When they had gone he turned to me with eyes in which there was a strange something, whose meaning, just then, I did not attempt to decipher; though I was dimly conscious, as my eyes looked into his, of an odd sensation of wonder as to whether the doctor himself might not be going mad.
“What is it which actuates your moves in this game which you are playing? To save your neck, do you propose to hang her, as well as Philip Lawrence?”
That is what he said to me. To save my neck! The words rang in my ears as I mounted towards the housekeeper’s room. They were to me as the germ of an idea.
CHAPTER XIII.
SHE AND I
The girl was changed. I perceived it as soon as I was in Mrs. Peddar’s room. She stood behind the table, and, as I entered, turned her face away. Her attitude suggested doubt, hesitation, even shame. It was so different to the spontaneous burst of friendship which, hitherto, when she saw me, had brought her to my side.
Miss Adair was seated with her hands lying open on her knee; in her bearing there was also dubiety, and in Mrs. Peddar’s as, leaning against her sideboard, she fidgeted with the fringe of her black apron. The air was so charged with the spirit of uncertainty that, as soon as I entered, it affected me. We each of us seemed to be unwilling to meet the other’s glances. It was with an effort I broke the uncomfortable silence.
“I don’t think, Miss Moore, that I should lose any time in going home with Miss Adair.”
“Going home? Where is my home? Yes, I know I ought to know, and I do know more than I did, but—I can’t just find it.”
“Never mind about that, Miss Adair will see you’re all right. Now put your hat on, and off you go. I’m afraid that I must hurry you.”
I was thinking of Inspector Symonds down below, and how extremely possible it was that he might change his mind. She made no movement, but continued looking down on to the floor, her brow all creased in lines of pain.