But Oliver did not turn round. He was evidently already out of hearing.
Feeling strangely restless, Laura walked out a little way, closing the door partly behind her. There was about a quarter of a mile of carriage road from the house to the gate, but the night was very clear, the ground hard and dry. Soon her eyes became accustomed to the darkness; she could see Oliver's tall figure rapidly growing less and less, dimmer and dimmer. Every moment she expected to see another, still more familiar, form emerge from out of the darkness. But, after pacing up and down for perhaps as long as ten minutes, she went back into the house. Godfrey was evidently coming home by the last train.
Moved by an indefinable feeling of peace as well as of contentment, Laura sat up long that night, waiting for her husband. She had made up her mind to tell him, not only that Oliver had come back, but also that her brother was on his way to Mexico. Half ashamedly she asked herself why they should not all three go back to the happy conditions which had lasted all the summer?
But there came neither Godfrey nor news of him, and Laura spent the evening of a day of which the date was to become memorable, not unhappily in reading.
When it came to half-past eleven, she knew that her husband would not be home that night, but, even so, she sat up till the tall lacquered clock in the hall struck out the chimes of midnight. Then, a little reluctantly, she went upstairs, telling herself that if in the morning there was still no news of Godfrey, she and Alice would stroll along to Rosedean. Katty might know something of Godfrey's movements, for when she had been last at The Chase an illusion had been made to a bit of business he was to do for her in London, which would necessitate some correspondence.
Chapter XIV
There are certain winter days when bed and bath seem to be the only two tolerable places in the world.
Katty Winslow, on waking up the next morning, that is, on Saturday, the seventh of January, knew at once, though she was snuggled down deep in her warm bed, that it was very much colder than it had been the evening before. She shivered a little, telling herself that perhaps she was not in as good condition as usual, for she had only just come back from spending Christmas and the New Year away.
The faithful Harber drew back the curtains, letting in gleams of red winter sun. And then she brought her mistress a nice cup of hot tea, and a pretty, wadded, pale-blue bed wrap.
Katty sat up. "I'm not in any hurry to-day," she said. "I'll ring when I want breakfast." And after having taken her tea she lay down again, and began to think.
Oddly, or perhaps naturally, enough, her thoughts turned to Godfrey Pavely. She wondered vaguely where he was, and if he would be home to-day.
There had been a kind of half arrangement between them that they would travel down from London together on the Thursday afternoon. That would have meant for Katty the benefit of The Chase motor—a pleasant as well as an economical plan—and its owner's company as far as Rosedean.
But Katty had not found Godfrey Pavely at the London station, though she had lingered about up to the very last moment before taking, regretfully, a third-class ticket. On arriving at Pewsbury she had also waited some minutes in the vague hope that Godfrey might have dashed up just as the train was leaving—not that he was apt to dash at any time, for he was always very careful of himself, and had a due regard for his personal dignity. But there was no sign of the familiar figure, and so Katty had had to take a fly—a slow, smelly, expensive fly—out to Rosedean.
Yesterday, Friday, had been a rather tiresome, dull day, spent in hearing from Harber all the disagreeable things which had happened while she had been away—how Harber's stupid, untrained girl-help had gone and broken a rather nice piece of china in the drawing-room, and also how it had come to pass that there were two slates off the roof.
Katty had rather expected Godfrey would come in, if only to apologise for having failed her during the journey. But the afternoon had gone slowly by, and at last she felt sure, knowing his ways, that he had not yet come home. Something must have delayed him—something, perhaps, connected with that pleasant Portuguese gambling concession which was to bring them both such a lot of money. But if that were so, she would almost certainly receive from him this morning one of his rather long, explanatory letters. Of late Godfrey had fallen into the way of writing to Katty almost every day when they were apart.
Though Mrs. Winslow meant to keep the fact strictly to herself—for it was one that might have somewhat surprised even the unsuspicious Laura—she and Godfrey had actually spent a long day together during their dual absence from home.
It had fallen out as such pleasant meetings sometimes do fall out, very naturally and innocently, just a week ago to-day.
Katty, on her way from the south to stay with her friends, the Haworths, had run up against Godfrey Pavely at King's Cross. That had been a really extraordinary coincidence, and one of which it would have been foolish not to take advantage. For it turned out that he also was going to Yorkshire, and on the business in which they were both interested, to spend a night with the ex-money-lender, Greville Howard. That gentleman, it seemed, was making certain difficulties about the matter—he wanted to stay his hand till he had seen the French bankers who were concerned with the affair. As he spent each spring in the south of France, that would not be such a difficulty as it seemed. Still, it was a bore, and the other had felt he had better go and see him.
After a pleasant journey together, as they were steaming into York station Godfrey suddenly asked: "Must you go on to your friends at once? Couldn't you telephone to them to meet you by a later train? I'm in no hurry." And, smilingly, she had consented.
Of late Katty's heart had become very soft to her old friend. For one thing he was being so good to her in the matter of money. That two hundred pounds he had given to her some weeks ago had been followed by two fifty-pound notes. And yet, though she knew poor Godfrey was quite unaware of it, her original purpose—the purpose which had so distressed him, and which, as she well knew, had induced in him such extraordinary and unusual generosity—had not faltered at all. Katty still meant to cut the cable, and start a new life elsewhere.
Rosedean was all very well; her close friendship with Godfrey Pavely was all very well; though of late she had been disagreeably aware that Godfrey was ashamed—ashamed of giving her that money, ashamed of his increasing fondness for her, ashamed also of—well, of other little things which sometimes happened, things which Katty thought quite unimportant, which she regarded as part of the payment due from her to Godfrey. But she realised more rather than less, as time went on, that if she wanted to make anything of her life there must come a change. She would wait a while, wait perhaps till next autumn—so she had told those kind friends of hers, the Haworths.
Katty was sometimes surprised to find how sorry she was that things had not fallen out otherwise. But she had always tried, in all the great things of life, to look the truth squarely in the face. Only once had she been caught doing anything else—and that, as we know, had been years and years ago. She was not likely to make that sort of mistake now. She had come to see, with a rather painful clearness, that Godfrey and Laura, however ill they got on together, were not the sort of people to lend themselves to any kind of juggling with the law to obtain their liberty.
But she had been disappointed in Oliver Tropenell. She had felt in him accumulated forces of that explosive energy which leads to determined action—also she had thought that Gillie would do something.
But the two had disappeared together almost immediately after her talk with Laura's brother. That was over ten weeks ago now, and neither had given any sign of life since.
But Katty intended to keep up with Godfrey. For one thing she was keenly interested in that business in which they were, in a sense, both engaged. Also one never can tell what life—and death—may not bring forth. Whatever happened, the link between herself and Godfrey was too strong ever to be broken. Even if she married again, which