She was vainly trying to win back her composure, and could not answer him at once....
In the evening after supper Grisel sat her guest down in front of a big wood fire in the old book-room, where, staring into the playing flames, he could fall at peace into the almost motionless reverie which he seemed merely to harass and weary himself by trying to disperse. She opened the little piano at the far end of the room and played on and on as fancy led—Chopin and Beethoven, a fugue from Bach, and lovely forlorn old English airs, till the music seemed not only a voice persuading, pondering, and lamenting, but gathered about itself the hollow surge of the water and the darkness; wistful and clear, as the thoughts of a solitary child. Ever and again a log burnt through its strength, and falling amid sparks, stirred, like a restless animal, the stillness; or Herbert in his corner lifted his head to glance towards his visitor, and to turn another page. At last the music, too, fell silent, and Lawford stood up with his candle in his hand and eyed with a strange fixity brother and sister. His glance wandered slowly round the quiet flame-lit room.
‘You won’t,’ he said, stooping towards them as if in extreme confidence, ‘you won’t much notice? They come and go. I try not to—to speak. It’s the only way through. It is not that I don’t know they’re only dreams. But if once the—the others thought there had been any tampering’—he tapped his forehead meaningly—‘here: if once they thought that, it would, you know, be quite over then. How could I prove...?’ He turned cautiously towards the door, and with laborious significance nodded his head at them.
Herbert bent down and held out his long hands to the fire. ‘Tampering, my dear chap: That’s what the lump said to the leaven.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Lawford, putting out his hand, ‘but you know what I mean, Herbert. Anything I tried to do then would be quite, quite hopeless. That would be poisoning the wells.’
They watched him out of the room, and listened till quite distinctly in the still night-shaded house they heard his door gently close. Then, as if by consent, they turned and looked long and questioningly into each other’s faces.
‘Then you are not afraid?’ Herbert said quietly.
Grisel gazed steadily on, and almost imperceptibly shook her head.
‘You mean?’ he questioned her; but still he had again to read her answer in her eyes.
‘Oh, very well, Grisel,’ he said quietly, ‘you know best,’ and returned once more to his writing.