"Alas, my dear! I have only one; and that is a heart."
"So you are to do the feeling, while I am to do the sympathising; is that the arrangement?"
The widow gave a distant, rather melancholy smile.
"No one can deny that you are a very clever girl, and perhaps that is one more reason why I like you."
The dialogue was terminated by the abrupt starting of the car. Isbel glanced at her watch. It was half-past one.
Chapter XIV IN THE SECOND CHAMBER AGAIN
At ten minutes to three, while they were all together in the library on the first floor, Mrs. Richborough and Judge were inspecting one of the corner shelves, with their backs turned upon her-thereby effectually excluding her from the conversation-Isbel seized the opportunity to slip quietly from the room. Descending on tip-toe the servants' staircase opposite, she found herself in the kitchens, through which she was obliged to pass in order to regain the hall. As she went by the foot of the main staircase, she heard her name being called…"Miss Loment! Miss Loment!"…It was Judge's voice. She had been missed already, and the mock search had commenced.
A short half-hour ago, when she had entered the hall from out of doors in company with the others, those strange stairs had not been there. Whether it was that her agitation prohibited the use of her reasoning faculties, or whether that her mind had become surfeited with marvels, it hardly occurred to her to doubt that she should see them now. Hurried to action by the distant hailing, she at once lifted her eyes, anxiously and fearfully, to the wall beyond the fireplace, while still hastening across the floor…There they were!…
She arrived at the foot of the staircase as in a dream, and stood a moment with one shoe poised on the bottom step, her gaze vainly directed towards the invisible top. Then, without changing a muscle of her face, she began to mount.
Half-way up, when the hall was already our of sight, her memory came back and she started piecing together the incidents of her last visit to that extraordinary region of the house. To allow herself time to thoroughly reconstruct everything, she seated herself sideways on one of the steps, staring fixedly downstairs, with twisted neck and eyes which saw nothing…
The more she recollected of that meeting with Judge, the greater became her disquietude; she kept starting nervously to rise, while the blood ebbed and flowed in her cheeks. If in that interview they had succeeded in keeping within the bounds of friendship, it was obviously it had only been by the exercise of great self-control; and, in view of his later confession, who could say what would now happen? The warm sympathy of their exchanges, their almost unseemly anxiety to lay aside all deception with each other, their mutual approval of one another's conduct-upon which the world would pass an altogether different judgement-and, lastly, her gift to him of that scarf, warm from her own neck: all this, as it grew slowly together in her mind, appeared to her as something which was irreconcilable with her true character, as something shameless and dreadful; it was like awaking by degrees to the awful temporary insanity…Only it was not insanity; it was not even an accidental expression of excited feelings, induced by the strange circumstances in which they had found themselves. It was worse than that. It sprang from the genuine and unfeigned emotion of both their hearts…
By what miraculous chance had they met there, at the same hour, on the same day, in the same unreal room of a house which, less than a month ago, she had not known the existence? Judge had not set foot in that weird room for eight years, while she had never been inside it before in her life-and now, suddenly, they meet there, and within a few minutes she has given him a tangible pledge of her favour…
It was more than chance; it was fate. Something-some strange influence in the house, was throwing them together…how far and for what purpose she dared not ask herself. It was of no use to disguise things. Every step they took-inside the house, or out of it-had the direct effect of entangling them more and more, and there could be but one end to it all; an end which bore a double face. The obverse face was noble, uplifting union with a man of unique character; the reverse face was social catastrophe…
She was a betrothed girl, and honour commanded she go back at once. It was untrue…she did not love Judge, she did love Marshall. On the last occasion she had met Judge by chance, therefore she was not at fault, but if now she persisted in repeating the adventure she would be committing a sin of conscience. And how would it be possible for her ever to hold up her head again among her friends, if she elected to act with such disgusting faithlessness towards a true-hearted man of her own age, in order to accept the sudden protestations of emotional affinity of an elderly widower?…She buried her face in her hands…
But it was out of the question to turn tail now, without first clearing things up. If she did, it would simply mean the whole torturing business over again-the same failure of memory, the same anxiety to find out what had happened, the same dallyings with Judge, the same surreptitious visits and counter-visits, the same humiliating scheming and deception, the same lowering of her entire moral and physical tone, and in the end…exposure! If she were so miserably weak and cowardly, so unsure of her own moral fibre, that she dared not meet a strange man in a private place for ten minutes, in order to finish with him once for all, then affairs had arrived at a very serious impasse, and she was deliberately turning her back on the only apparent means of escape from an impossible situation.
However much she dreaded it, there was really no alternative to her seeing Judge upstairs just this once more…not as stolen joy, but in order to put a definite end to their disagreeable intimacy. Exactly how this was to be effected she did not know, but, since he was a gentleman, he would of course make it his business to devise some plan…After all, this dreadful manor house was his, he was responsible for what went on inside it; if there were mysteries there requiring a solution, he had no earthly right to call upon her for assistance…
She got up and mechanically shook out her garments. Slowly climbing the remaining stairs, she again stood in the familiar ante-chamber, with its three doors. Without any hesitation whatever she advanced to the middle one, and, sharply turning the handle, let herself into the apartment, where last Monday she had met Judge.
Nothing was different. There were the same panelled walls, the same polished flooring, the same solitary couch at the end of the room. She cast a troubled glance round, and sat down, with heaving bosom, to wait…
Five minutes later the door was thrown open, and Judge walked in. He stopped where he was, looked anxiously at Isbel and at the same time pushed the door to, behind him, but failed to close. Isbel gazed in his direction with equal earnestness, but she did not offer to rise.
"I've got away, as you can see," began Judge. "May I sit down?"
"Please!" She made space for him. They both sat in stiff attitudes, at some distance from each other.
There was an awkward pause, which Isbel broke by saying: "I don't wish to come here again, so we must think of some way of ending it."
"I quite understand."
"It's making my existence intolerable."
"It was madness on my part to accept that scarf. That's the root of all the mischief. I ought to have known that we should remember nothing of the circumstances under which it came into my possession."
"We were both to blame for that. It doesn't matter now. But I shan't come here again, so I wish to ask you to take steps to prevent a repetition."
"Very well. I'll write a note before we go down, and put it in my vest pocket, where I shall be sure to strike it…But are we not to see that other room?"