CHAPTER THE FORTY-THIRD.
THE EXPLOSION.
ARNOLD’S mind was far from easy when he was left by himself again in the smoking-room.
After wasting some time in vainly trying to guess at the source from which Lady Lundie had derived her information, he put on his hat, and took the direction which led to Blanche’s favorite walk at Ham Farm. Without absolutely distrusting her ladyship’s discretion, the idea had occurred to him that he would do well to join his wife and her step-mother. By making a third at the interview between them, he might prevent the conversation from assuming a perilously confidential turn.
The search for the ladies proved useless. They had not taken the direction in which he supposed them to have gone.
He returned to the smoking-room, and composed himself to wait for events as patiently as he might. In this passive position—with his thoughts still running on Lady Lundie—his memory reverted to a brief conversation between Sir Patrick and himself, occasioned, on the previous day, by her ladyship’s announcement of her proposed visit to Ham Farm. Sir Patrick had at once expressed his conviction that his sister-in-law’s journey south had some acknowledged purpose at the bottom of it.
“I am not at all sure, Arnold” (he had said), “that I have done wisely in leaving her letter unanswered. And I am strongly disposed to think that the safest course will be to take her into the secret when she comes to-morrow. We can’t help the position in which we are placed. It was impossible (without admitting your wife to our confidence) to prevent Blanche from writing that unlucky letter to her—and, even if we had prevented it, she must have heard in other ways of your return to England. I don’t doubt my own discretion, so far; and I don’t doubt the convenience of keeping her in the dark, as a means of keeping her from meddling in this business of yours, until I have had time to set it right. But she may, by some unlucky accident, discover the truth for herself—and, in that case, I strongly distrust the influence which she might attempt to exercise on Blanche’s mind.”
Those were the words—and what had happened on the day after they had been spoken? Lady Lundie had discovered the truth; and she was, at that moment, alone somewhere with Blanche. Arnold took up his hat once more, and set forth on the search for the ladies in another direction.
The second expedition was as fruitless as the first. Nothing was to be seen, and nothing was to be heard, of Lady Lundie and Blanche.
Arnold’s watch told him that it was not far from the time when Sir Patrick might be expected to return. In all probability, while he had been looking for them, the ladies had gone back by some other way to the house. He entered the rooms on the ground-floor, one after another. They were all empty. He went up stairs, and knocked at the door of Blanche’s room. There was no answer. He opened the door and looked in. The room was empty, like the rooms down stairs. But, close to the entrance, there was a trifling circumstance to attract notice, in the shape of a note lying on the carpet. He picked it up, and saw that it was addressed to him in the handwriting of his wife.