But I thought nothing of it, and I was-happy. Two or three days passed, and Mar-got did not again refer to her curious sensation of pre-knowledge of the house and garden. I fancied there was a slight alteration in her manner; that was all. She seemed a little restless. Her vivacity flagged now and then. She was more willing to be alone than she had been. But we were old married folk now, and could not be always in each other’s sight. I had a great many people connected with the estate to see, and had to gather up the tangled threads of many affairs.
The honeymoon was over. Of course we could not always be together.
Still, I should have wished Margot to desire it, and I could not hide from myself that now and then she scarcely concealed a slight impatience to be left in solitude. This troubled me, but only a little, for she was generally as fond as ever. That evening, however, an incident occurred which rendered me decidedly uneasy, and made me wonder if my wife were not inclined to that curse of highly-strung women—hysteria!
I had been riding over the moors to visit a tenant-farmer who lived at some distance, and did not return until twilight. Dismounting, I let myself into the house, traversed the hall, and ascended the stairs. As I wore spurs, and the steps were of polished oak and uncarpeted, I walked noisily enough to warn anyone of my approach. I was passing the door of the room that had been my grandmother’s sitting-room, when I noticed that it stood open. The house was rather dark, and the interior was dim enough, but I could see a figure in a white dress moving about inside. I recognised Margot, and wondered what she was doing, but her movements were so singular that, instead of speaking to her, I stood in the doorway and watched her.
She was walking, with a very peculiar, stealthy step, around the room, not as if she were looking for anything, but merely as if she were restless or ill at ease. But what struck me forcibly was this, that there was something curiously animal in her movements, seen thus in a dim half-light that only partially revealed her to me. I had never seen a woman walk in that strangely wild yet soft way before. There was something uncanny about it, that rendered me extremely discomforted; yet I was quite fascinated, and rooted to the ground.
I cannot tell how long I stood there. I was so completely absorbed in the passion of the gazer that the passage of time did not concern me in the least. I was as one assisting at a strange spectacle. This white thing moving in the dark did not suggest my wife to me, although it was she. I might have been watching an animal, vague, yet purposeful of mind, tracing out some hidden thing, following out some instinct quite foreign to humanity. I remember that presently I involuntarily clasped my hands together, and felt that they were very cold. Perspiration broke out on my face. I was painfully, unnaturally moved, and a violent desire to be away from this white moving thing came over me. Walking as softly as I could, I went to my dressing-room, shut the door, and sat down on a chair. I never remember to have felt thoroughly unnerved before, but now I found myself actually shaken, palsied. I could understand how deadly a thing fear is. I lit a candle hastily, and as I did so a knock came to the door.
Margot’s voice said, “May I come in?” I felt unable to reply, so I got up and admitted her.
She entered smiling, and looking such a child, so innocent, so tender, that I almost laughed aloud. That I, a man, should have been frightened by a child in a white dress, just because the twilight cast a phantom atmosphere around her! I held her in my arms, and I gazed into her blue eyes.
She looked down, but still smiled.
“Where have you been, and what have you been doing?” I asked gaily.