The driver came out. He leaped to his seat. In another moment the cab rattled away.
Hugh Ritson walked back into the house. The boy Jabez had come down-stairs. "When do you close the house?" Hugh asked.
"Eleven o'clock, sir," said Jabez.
"No one here—you might almost as well close now. No matter—go behind the bar, my lad. Mercy, your eyes are more inflamed than ever; get away to bed immediately."
Mercy's eyes were not more red than their expression was one of bewilderment. She moved off mechanically. When she reached the foot of the stairs she turned and tried to speak. The words would not come. At length she said, in a strange voice: "You did not tell me the truth."
"Mercy!"
"Where's Parson Christian?" said Mercy, and her voice grew stern.
"You must not use that tone to me. Come, get away to bed, little one."
Her eyes dropped before his. She turned away. He watched her up the stairs. So sure of hand was he that not even at that moment did he doubt his hold of her. But Mercy did not go to bed. She turned in at the open door of Drayton's room. The room was dark; only a fitful ray of bleared moonlight fell crosswise on the floor; but she could see that the unconscious figure of Paul Ritson lay stretched upon the bed.
"And I have led you here with a lie!" she thought. Then her head swam and fell on to the counterpane. Some minutes passed in silence. She was aroused by footsteps in the passage outside. They were coming toward this room. The door, which stood ajar, was pushed open. There was no time for Mercy to escape, so she crept back into the darkness of a narrow space between the foot of the bed and the wall.