"Miladi, Sir Anthony, he tell me to bring you one little bottle of champagne, to make you eat one little piece of chicken."
Judith snatched up the couvre-pied, and drew it round her tightly. She shivered as she met the maid's gaze, her hands caught tightly at the cloth.
"Put the tray down," she said. "It—perhaps I may feel better presently—perhaps I will take something."
"I hope so, miladi, or Sir Anthony, he will be much distressed when he comes home," Célestine brought up a small table and put the tray upon it.
Judith, with her terrible guilty knowledge, cowered before the girl's eyes. In vain she told herself that there was nothing to be seen, that the couvre-pied hid both her hat and cloak as well as the front of her gown. Célestine's gaze told her that something had surprised her, that she had seen something unexpected.
Célestine was spreading out a dainty little supper, the wing of a chicken, some jelly, a small bottle of champagne; she brought the table a little nearer to her mistress.
Judith's eyes followed hers, then she made a quick involuntary gesture of concealment. Célestine's gaze was riveted on the hand that held the couvre-pied firmly over the tell-tale bodice. The delicate skin, the slender pink-tipped fingers were all blackened with ink.
"Miladi will take her supper." The maid's tone was perfectly respectful, but there was a subtle change in its quality.
Judith did not look up. After that first instinctive gesture she had not moved.
"That will do, Célestine, I will ring when I have finished," she said decidedly.
Left alone, she leaned forward and, taking up the wineglass, drank off the contents feverishly.
Then she stood up, a tall slim figure, with great terror-haunted eyes, burning in a white tragic face. Catching a glimpse of herself in the long pier glass, of the disfiguring stains on the front of her gown, she shuddered violently.
Then, she caught at her dress, she tore at the fastenings with her blackened fingers, and threw it from her on the floor. She gathered it up in a heap in her arms and, crossing the room to a small wardrobe that contained some of her oldest dresses and was seldom used, she thrust her bundle deep down in the well, dropped an old skirt over it, closed the door and locked it, and, after a moment's thought, put the key away in her jewel-case. Then she looked down at her ink-stained hands. Pumice stone removed the worst stains from her fingers themselves, but the ink had got under her delicate nails, and no effort of hers would move it.
She brushed on, mechanically. Her thoughts were back at the flat; what was happening there? she asked herself. Had the dead man been discovered?
What would the other man do—he who had met her on the stairs—when he heard what had happened in the flat that night? Would he denounce her, set the police to search for her?
Long fits of trembling shook her from head to foot. She tried to tell herself that it was impossible that anything should connect her with the dead man—that as Lady Carew she was safe, all links with the past destroyed; she felt that she was standing on a powder-mine, that at any moment the explosion might come, and this late-found happiness, at which she had snatched, be taken from her.
Presently there were sounds in Sir Anthony's dressing-room; she could hear him walking about, opening and shutting drawers. A passing wonder that he should be at home so early struck her—that he had not come in to ask how she was. Then a swift remembrance of the revolver she had taken from his room flashed across her mind. She had left it in the flat. Would he find out its loss? A sudden revelation that it must have been with this weapon the fatal shot was fired came to her! She recollected that it was on the table where it had been thrown when she groped for it. The murderer must have found it there, must have used it.
The horror of the thought drew her to the closed door. She tried it—it was locked.
"Anthony!" she said very softly. "Anthony!"
Apparently he did not hear her; there was no answer. She listened; he was still walking about the room. She heard him go to his wardrobe; she heard him give the little cough that was so familiar, the sound of his breathing. Suddenly she was reminded of the darkness of that room in Cyril Stanmore's flat, of the breathing she had heard as she waited and listened—the thought of it sickened her.
She turned and tottered back to her couch.
Chapter V
The blind was up, the morning light was streaming in through the window.
Judith raised herself in bed, leaned forward clasping her arms round her knees, and stared straight before her, in miserable, dazed bewilderment. All night long she had been tossing and turning in bed, going over again that dead and buried past, dreading the present—the future.
But this morning as the bright sunshine streamed into the room, it seemed impossible that yesterday's—that last night's happenings could really have taken place.
It was—it must be—she told herself, some hideous dream.
In her ordered life, of late, that past in which Stanmore played his part had seemed so very far away, she had been trying to teach herself to forget it.
Was it possible, she asked herself shudderingly, that it was she, Anthony Carew's wife, who had gone to Stanmore's flat last night, who had stood there, panting like some caged wild creature, while that terrible deed was done?
Was it, could it, be a dream? She slipped out of bed, and stood for a moment with her bare feet on the Persian rug at the side.
She unlocked her jewel-case, and took out the key of the small wardrobe, then, crossing the room quickly with trembling footsteps she thrust the wardrobe door back and felt inside the well. Yes! Yes! there was the dress she had worn last night—as she had known too well in her heart it would be.
Shutting her eyes, she could recall the very shape of those horrible stains, those dull crimson splashes. There was no mistake; she had known all along there could be none.
She stood still until at last some sound from Anthony's room roused her. She started and listened, the colour flashing into her cheeks. She told herself that she could not speak out about last night's doings, as her better angel had been counselling her. She was tied and bound by the cords of Anthony's love, by Baby Paul's tiny hands.
Then, shivering, she got back into bed again.
She could hear her husband moving about in his room for some time; then she heard his door close, and realized with a curious sense of bewilderment that he had gone down without coming to inquire how she was.
At last Célestine appeared with the tea. The sight of it was very grateful to Judith's parched mouth; she drank it eagerly.
The maid uttered a little shocked exclamation as she saw her mistress's face.
"But Miladi has surely the influenza," she cried. "Miladi must remain in bed and summon the good Dr. Martin, is it not so?"
"Certainly not!" Judith negatived decidedly. "The very notion of lying in bed longer was hateful to her. I am quite well. Get my bath ready, Célestine. I shall get up at once."
She felt a little better when she had splashed in and out of her bath, when Célestine had arranged her hair in its usual golden crown, but she turned with loathing from the white morning gown the maid brought her. She would never wear white again, she thought with a shudder. Yet when her blue serge was fastened she wondered whether her white face did not look more colourless by contrast. She rubbed her cheeks rosy before she went downstairs.
Sir Anthony was standing at the table when she entered the breakfast