"I shall promise nothing of the kind."
"Then remember, Lawrence—you shall never marry Phillis Fleming! Not if I have to stop it by proclaiming my own disgrace—you shall not marry that girl, or any other girl. I have that power over you, at any rate. Now I shall go."
"There is some one on the stairs," said Lawrence quietly.
"Perhaps he is coming here. You had better not be seen. Best go into the other room and wait."
There was only one objection to her waiting in the other room, and that was that the door was on the opposite side; that the outer oak was wide open; that the step upon the stairs was already the step upon the landing; and that the owner of the step was already entering the room.
Mrs. Cassilis instinctively shrank back into the darkest corner—that near the window. The curtains were of some light-coloured stuff. She drew them closely round her and cowered down, covering her head with the hood, like Guinevere before her injured lord. For the late caller was no other than her own husband, Gabriel Cassilis.
As he stood in the doorway the light of the reading-lamp—Mrs. Cassilis in one of her gestures had tilted up the shade—fell upon his pale face and stooping form. Colquhoun noticed that he stooped more than usual, and that his grave face bore an anxious look—such a look as one sees sometimes in the faces of men who have long suffered grievous bodily pain. He hesitated for a moment, tapping his knuckles with his double eyeglasses, his habitual gesture.
"I came up this evening, Colquhoun. Are you quite alone?"
"As you see, Mr. Cassilis," said Colquhoun. He looked hastily round the room. In the corner he saw the dim outline of the crouching form. He adjusted the shade, and turned the lamp a little lower. The gas in the chambers on the other side of the narrow court was put out, and the room was almost dark. "As you see, Mr. Cassilis. And what gives me the pleasure of this late call from you?"
"I thought I would come—I came to say——" he stopped helplessly, and threw himself into a chair. It was a chair standing near the corner in which his wife was crouching; and he pushed it back until he might have heard her breathing close to his ear, and, if he had put forth his hand, might have touched her.