Auriole stood where he had left her. Presently she raised her hands and they were clenched so tightly that the knuckles were white as ivory.
"How utterly, utterly awful," she said to herself. "How unspeakable."
She picked up her bag and the other odds and ends a woman will carry and passed out of the house with flaming cheeks.
The chauffeur of the little two seater car that stood by the gates asked where he should drive.
"I don't care," she replied. "Anywhere you like. Get on a hill—some place where I can breathe."
The little Wolseley Ten wound through the green lanes and presently mounted a pine fringed slope. Away to the west hung the smoke of London with the pleasant countryside in between.
Auriole touched the chauffeur on the arm and he stopped. Alighting from the car she scrambled over uneven ground and presently threw herself down under the shade of a tree. Somewhere overhead a lark was singing and the air vibrated to the drone of summer insects. The day was blue, peaceful, sweet. A thin breeze rustled the foliage, and golden sun spots dappled the brown carpet of pine needles upon which she lay. A single cloud travelled in the sky and its shadow fell across the house and grounds in which Richard Frencham Altar was imprisoned. Auriole clenched her hands tightly and bit her lip. Somewhere behind those shuttered windows on the second floor the inquisition was going forward. Three men to one. The relentless interrogation. The same question repeated in a hundred ways and the same unshakable refusal to give an answer. It was fitting indeed that nature should cast a shadow over such doings.
"And I'm part of it," said Auriole.
Her thoughts flew back to her first meeting with Barraclough during the war. She was nursing then at a hospital in Eastbourne. He had had a bullet through the foot and was sent to the sea to recuperate. Strange how instantly they had liked each other. His good nature, pluck, generosity, were splendid assets in a friendship which went floundering loveward after the fashion of those crazy days. There was the fortnight they spent together in Town—perfectly respectable if a little unorthodox. He had money to burn and she helped him burn it. He had never asked more of her than companionship. Of course they kissed each other—everyone did during the war—that was understood; and he bought her presents too—ripping presents—and took her everywhere—theatres, undreamed-of restaurants, dances. A glorious time they had. He had denied her nothing except the offer of his name. After all there was no particular reason why he should have asked her to marry him—theirs was a mere partnership of gaiety added to which she knew well enough that it would not have been practicable. They were of a different mould. His blood was of the Counties and hers—Lord knows where she came from—"the people" is the best covering phrase to employ. She had been a mannequin in a Bond Street shop before the war. But was it fair—was it just to engender a love of luxury—to introduce her to all that her nature—vulgarised by unfamiliarity—coveted most! If he had proposed likely enough she would have been generous and refused him. But he didn't propose—he took it for granted that they were no more to each other than the moment dictated. There was a kind of long headed caution in his diffidence with regard to the future. He was exigent too in his demands and would not tolerate her being pleasant to anyone else. It was her nature to be pleasant to all men and restraints were odious and insulting. That was how the row came about. It took place on the night before his return to Prance. It was her fault no doubt because really he had been a ripping friend and loyal and trustworthy but the little climber felt that for once she had failed to climb. She was left, so to speak, in mid air, inoculated with the germs of all manner of new ambitions no longer realisable. Wherefore she forgot her affection for him and forgot all the lessons of politeness so studiously acquired in the years of climbing and let him have her opinions hot and strong as a simple uncultivated child of the people. The expression on Anthony Barraclough's face read plainly enough relief at his escape. He packed his valise and departed wondering greatly at the intricacy and unreasonableness of women. It did not occur to him that he was greatly to blame for having given her such a good time. Such a consideration was as remote as the thought of congratulating himself on his generosity. He was only awfully sorry she should have turned out as she did and rather perplexed at the apparent want of reason. And Auriole with the disposition to like him better than any man of her acquaintance suffered an entire reversal of feeling and went headlong to the other extreme in a spirit of unbecoming revengefulness.
And in the valley below, under the shadow of a cloud, this man was being tortured.