A few seconds later there was a cautious knocking at the door, which it was doubtless intended that Vallance should have responded to, instead of which it was Mr. Brabazon who now stepped forward and flung wide the door. On the threshold stood Sperani and her ladyship. They made a couple of steps forward and then paused--thunderstruck.
On her arrival in Paris, Lady Clinton, finding herself with a couple of hours to spare before the departure of the express for Pontarlier, as most fond mothers would have done, telegraphed to Lausanne, requesting to be informed whether her son was better or worse. In about an hour's time came the reply: "Cannot understand purport of your message. Young Offredi in most robust health. Has not suffered an hour's illness since his arrival at Lausanne."
Lady Clinton let the express go without her. One or two more messages passed between herself and the head of the lycée, and then she set her face homeward, satisfied that for once in her life she had been outwitted, and a prey to fears such as turned her soul faint within her. Who was the unknown enemy that had lured her from home by a fictitious telegram? And by what hidden motive had he, or she, been influenced? What might not have happened during her absence from the Keep? Above all, what might not have been discovered?
As she stood for a few seconds just within the doorway, white, haggard, travel-soiled, nothing of her seeming alive save her eyes, and as she took in the picture before her--her husband, supported on one side by Mr. Brabazon and on the other by Miss Roylance, with a group of armed strangers in the background--she could not but recognise that the game for which she had played so high and so desperately, and had risked so much, was lost almost beyond redemption. Still, she was a woman of an indomitable courage and resource, and she would have one final throw. If that should fail, then----!
All in an instant her face changed. It was as if a mask had suddenly fallen aside, leaving exposed to view the living, breathing, palpitating woman which it had hidden; while the cold, hard light of her eyes became veiled, as it were, with a luminous haze, through which she gazed at her husband with an expression of imploring tenderness, the power of which she was not now testing for the first time.
"What is the meaning of all this, Everardo mio?" she said in Italian, and with an unwonted thrill in her full, rich tones. "What business has brought these strangers here? And why are you out of bed at this hour of the night?"
She moved quickly forward as if to join him, but an imperious gesture on the part of Sir Everard arrested her mid-way.
"It means, Giulia," said the baronet, his left hand clasped firmly within his nephew's arm, "it means that here--now--to-night I leave you for ever. Never will I willingly set eyes on you again. By what reasons I have been actuated in coming to this resolve, you do not, I am sure, need to be told. Who should know them better than yourself? When one touches, as you and I do at this moment, one of the supreme crises of life, mere words seem idle and irrelevant. Therefore I leave you, without saying more, to the keeping of whatever conscience may still be existent within you. Madam, my lawyer will communicate with you in the course of a few days. Burgo, I am ready."
He had spoken with such a cold, sustained dignity, and with a manner so magisterial and aloof--as though he were a judge addressing some criminal in the dock--that the last faint ray of hope which her ladyship might have cherished was, there and then, quenched for ever. Her features stiffened into an expression of ineffable scorn, hate, and baffled rage. Her eyes blazed, and could looks have killed, few there would have been left alive. As Sir Everard and the others advanced she drew aside, not without dignity, so as not to impede their going. "And you too, Dacia?" she murmured, as Miss Roylance passed her.
"And I too, madam," responded the girl.