‘Very well; don’t be flurried, dearest. Shall I stay too, as we planned?’
‘O, Swithin, I fear not!’ she replied anxiously. ‘You see how it is. To-night we have broken the arrangement that you should never come here; and this is the result. Will it offend you if—I ask you to leave?’
‘Not in the least. Upon the whole, I prefer the comfort of my little cabin and homestead to the gauntness and alarms of this place.’
‘There, now, I fear you are offended!’ she said, a tear collecting in her eye. ‘I wish I was going back with you to the cabin! How happy we were, those three days of our stay there! But it is better, perhaps, just now, that you should leave me. Yes, these rooms are oppressive. They require a large household to make them cheerful. . . . Yet, Swithin,’ she added, after reflection, ‘I will not request you to go. Do as you think best. I will light a night-light, and leave you here to consider. For myself, I must go downstairs to my brother at once, or he’ll wonder what I am doing.’
She kindled the little light, and again retreated, closing the door upon him.
Swithin stood and waited some time; till he considered that upon the whole it would be preferable to leave. With this intention he emerged and went softly along the dark passage towards the extreme end, where there was a little crooked staircase that would conduct him down to a disused side door. Descending this stair he duly arrived at the other side of the house, facing the quarter whence the wind blew, and here he was surprised to catch the noise of rain beating against the windows. It was a state of weather which fully accounted for the visitor’s impatient ringing.
St. Cleeve was in a minor kind of dilemma. The rain reminded him that his hat and great-coat had been left downstairs, in the front part of the house; and though he might have gone home without either in ordinary weather it was not a pleasant feat in the pelting winter rain. Retracing his steps to Viviette’s room he took the light, and opened a closet-door that he had seen ajar on his way down. Within the closet hung various articles of apparel, upholstery lumber of all kinds filling the back part. Swithin thought he might find here a cloak of hers to throw round him, but finally took down from a peg a more suitable garment, the only one of the sort that was there. It was an old moth-eaten great-coat, heavily trimmed with fur; and in removing it a companion cap of sealskin was disclosed.
‘Whose can they be?’ he thought, and a gloomy answer suggested itself. ‘Pooh,’ he then said (summoning the scientific side of his nature), ‘matter is matter, and mental association only a delusion.’ Putting on the garments he returned the light to Lady Constantine’s bedroom, and again prepared to depart as before.
Scarcely, however, had he regained the corridor a second time, when he heard a light footstep—seemingly Viviette’s—again on the front landing. Wondering what she wanted with him further he waited, taking the precaution to step into the closet till sure it was she.
The figure came onward, bent to the keyhole of the bedroom door, and whispered (supposing him still inside), ‘Swithin, on second thoughts I think you may stay with safety.’