I cannot account for it even now, save by the suggestion that I was myself fully on the alert that night, and expectant of anything and everything that might happen; but the very air was stormy. The mere mutterings of that storm came, as it were, into the room with old Patton and his daughter; the menace of it was in the white watchful face of my guardian behind them. And yet there was nothing in the least stormy in the appearance of old Patton himself; indeed, he was quite a benevolent-looking gentleman, rather too old, I thought, to be the father of Barbara, for his hair was white, and he stooped a little as he walked. But he had a kindly face, with yet a certain strong note of determination in it.
Barbara raised her eyes to mine once, and once only; and in that flash I strove to read her thoughts and her heart. In the look I thought I detected that she mutely asked me something, or pleaded with me; so much I seemed to understand, but no more. She gave no sign of knowing me, and only bowed slightly when I was introduced; old Patton, on the other hand, greeted me warmly, and had a cordial word or two to say about my guardian. He shook hands, too, with Hockley, and seemed to know him; I gathered that Hockley had been there before.
I had had a wild dream that I might take Barbara in to dinner; but that was reserved for the young man of the good-humoured face. Somehow I felt I did not like him quite so well as I had at first, but, remembering our meeting in the wood, I felt that Barbara probably shared my feelings on the matter, and suffered as much as I did. I went in at the tail end of the little procession, and was consoled to find that Barbara was seated opposite me, and that I could watch her easily during the progress of the meal. Other eyes were watching her, too, with a curious intentness; my guardian's, with his nostrils distended, and his hands nervously gripping each other; Hockley's, with the brutal dull look that belonged to him. For her own part, she kept her eyes on her plate, and only now and then seemed to answer a remark addressed to her by the young man of the good-humoured face, whose name I heard was Lucas Savell.
I do not remember the dinner; it seemed all Barbara. I know I replied to words addressed to me, and I suppose I replied fairly intelligently; but all the time I seemed to see that face before me, and to see it, strangely enough, as the centre of that storm-cloud that was gathering. From that face I would glance for a moment to the face of Jervis Fanshawe, that never seemed to change, and that was like a white mask; and from that again to the face of old Patton, at the head of the table, watching the bent head of his daughter; or again to Hockley, lounging clumsily in his chair, with his shoulder turned towards the doctor's wife, the while he carelessly flung a remark or two over it at that lady. And so back to Barbara again.
I awoke to the consciousness that the doctor was telling a story, and telling it, as it seemed, rather well, to judge by the interested faces about him; even Barbara had raised her head a little, and seemed to be listening.
"It came to this, therefore," the doctor was saying, "that this man had a reason for getting rid of two people, and, so far as I can make out (for, of course, you will understand that I cannot give names or dates or places), set about deliberately to compass the death of both. The one man he determined should, if possible, be induced to kill the other, and in so doing should, of necessity, kill himself, in suffering the just penalty of his crime."
"And did the plan succeed?" It was old Patton who asked the question, and it was obvious that he asked it more to keep the conversation alive than for any real interest he felt in such a subject.
"Yes, the plan succeeded," said the doctor, softly crumbling a morsel of bread, and looking down at it, before raising his bright eyes for a moment to his host. "He brought the two men together, as if in the most innocent way; saw to it that they were thrown much into each other's company; arranged that they should become on such intimate terms that they should know each other's secret lives, and so should play into each other's hands, and into his. And in that way he almost overshot the mark; for they became so friendly that there seemed for a time but little prospect that the one should ever quarrel with the other sufficiently to seek his life. Therefore our friend determined to introduce another element—a mere pawn in the game. He chose a woman."
A little sigh went up from the company, and there was some small nodding of heads, as though this was quite what might have been expected. Glancing round the table, I caught sight of only one face, and that a horrible one; the face of Jervis Fanshawe, thrust forward, with eager eyes fixed on those of the doctor. It fascinated me, and I watched it.