A dreamy smile played over his lips. His eyes--not quite so bloodshot this morning--were drowsed with quiet thought.

As he was about to descend the stairs he turned and glanced towards a closed door at the end of the pa.s.sage.

It was the door of Mary"s room and this was his farewell to the wife whose only thought was of him, with whom, in "The blessed bond of board and bed" he had spent the happy years of his first manhood and success.

A glance at the closed door; an almost complacent smile; after all those years of holy intimacy this was his farewell.

As he descended the stairs, the Murderer was humming a little tune.

The two maid servants were in the hall to see him go. They were fond of him. He was a kind and generous master.

"You"re looking much better this morning, sir," said Phoebe. She was pretty and privileged... .

"I"m feeling very well, Phoebe. This little trip will do me a lot of good, and I shall bring home lots of birds for you to cook. Now mind both you girls look after your Mistress well. I shall expect to see her greatly improved when I return. Give her my love when she wakes up.

Don"t forward any letters because I am not certain where I shall be. It will be in the Blackwater neighbourhood, Brightlingsea, or I may make my headquarters at Colchester for the three days. But I can"t be quite sure. I shall be back in three days."

"Good morning, sir. I hope you"ll have good sport."

"Thank you, Phoebe--that"s right, Tumpany, put Trust on the seat first and then get up yourself--what"s the matter with the dog?--never saw him so shy. No, James, you drive--all right?--Let her go then."

The impatient mare in the shafts of the cart pawed the gravel and was off. The trap rolled out of the drive as Lothian lit a cigar.

It really was a most perfect early morning, and there was a bloom upon the stubble and Mortland Royal wood like the bloom upon a plum.

The air was keen, the sun bright. The pheasants chuckled in the wood, the mare"s feet pounded the hard road merrily.

"What a thoroughly delightful morning!" Lothian said to the groom at his side and his eyes were still dreamy with subtle content.

CHAPTER IX

A STARTLING EXPERIENCE FOR "WOG"

"The die rang sideways as it fell, Rang cracked and thin, Like a man"s laughter heard in h.e.l.l... ."

--_Swinburne._

It was nearly seven o"clock in the evening; a dry, acrid, coughing cold lay over London.

In the little Kensington flat of Rita Wallace and Ethel Harrison, the fire was low and almost out. The "Lulu bird" drooped on its perch and Wog was crying quietly by the fire.

How desolate the flat seemed to the faithful Wog as she looked round with br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes.

The state and arrangement of a familiar room often seem organically related to the human mind. Certainly we ourselves give personality to rooms which we have long inhabited; and that personality re-acts upon us at times when event disturbs it.

It was so now with the good and tender-hearted clergyman"s daughter.

The floor of the sitting-room was littered with little pieces of paper and odds and ends of string. Upon the piano--it was Wog"s piano now, a present from Rita--was a ma.s.sive photograph frame of silver. There was no photograph in it, but some charred remains of a photograph which had been burned still lay in the grate.

Wog had burnt the photograph herself, that morning, early.

"You do it, darling," Rita had said to her. "I can"t do it myself. And take this box. It"s locked and sealed. It has the letters in it. I cannot burn them, but I don"t want to read them again. I must not, now.

But keep it carefully, always. If ever I _should_ ask for it, deliver it to me wherever I am."

"You must _never_ ask for it, my darling girl," Wog had said quickly.

"Let me burn the box and its contents."

"No, no! You must not, dearest Wog, my dear old friend! It would be wrong. Rossetti had to open the coffin of his wife to get back the poems which he had buried with her. Keep it as I say."

Wog knew nothing about Rossetti, and the inherent value of works of art in ma.n.u.script didn"t appeal to her. But she had been able to refuse her friend nothing on this morning of mornings.

Wog was wearing her best frock, a new one, a present also. She had never had so smart a frock before. She held her little handkerchief very carefully that none of the drops that streamed from her eyes should fall upon the dress and stain it.

"My bridesmaid dress," she said aloud with a choke of melancholy laughter. "We mustn"t spoil it, must we, Lulu bird?"

But the canary remained motionless upon its perch like a tiny stuffed thing.

In one corner of the room was a large corded packing-case. It contained a big and costly epergne of silver, in execrable taste and savouring strongly of the mid-Victorian, a period when a choir of great voices sang upon Parna.s.sus but the greatest were content to live in surroundings that would drive a minor poet of our era to insanity. This was to be forwarded to Wiltshire in a fortnight or so.

It was Mr. Podley"s present.

Wog"s eyes fell upon it now. "What a kind good man Mr. Podley is," she thought. "How anxious he has been to forward everything. And to give dear Rita away also!"

Then this good girl remembered what a happy change in her own life and prospects was imminent.

She was to be the head librarian of the Podley Pure Literature Inst.i.tute, vice Mr. Hands, retired. She was to have two hundred a year and choose her own a.s.sistant.

Mr. and Mrs. Podley--at whose house Ethel had spent some hours--were not exactly what one would call "cultured" people. They were homely; but they were sincere and good.

"Now you, my dear," Mrs. Podley had said to her, "are just the lady we want. You are a clergyman"s daughter. You have had a business training.

The Library will be safe in your hands. And we like you! We feel friends to you, Miss Harrison. "Give it to Miss Harrison," I said to my husband, directly I had had a talk with you."

"But I know so little about literature," Wog had answered. "Of course I read, and I have my own little collection of books. But to take charge of a public library--oh, Mrs. Podley, _do_ you think I shall be able to do it to Mr. Podley"s satisfaction?"

Mrs. Podley had patted the girl upon her arm. "You"re a good girl, my dear," she said, "and that is enough for us. We mayn"t be literary, my husband and me, but we know a good woman when we meet her. Now you just take charge of that library and do exactly as you like. Come and have dinner with us every week, dearie. When all"s said we"re a lonely old couple and a good girl like you, what is clever too, and born a lady, is just what I want. Podley shall do something for your dear Father.

I"ll see to that. And your brothers too, just coming from school as they are. Leave it to me, my dear!"

About Rita the good dame had been less enthusiastic.

"The evening after Podley had to talk to her" (thus Mrs. Podley) "I asked you both up here. I fell in love with you at once, my dear. Her, I didn"t like. Pretty as a picture; yes! But different somehow! Yet sensible enough--really--as P. has told me. When he gave her a talking to, as being an elderly and successful man who employed her he had well a right to do, she saw at once the scandal and wrong of going about with a married man--be he poet or whatnot. It was only her girlish foolishness, of course. Poor silly lamb, she didn"t know. But what a blessing that all the time she was being courted by that young country squire. I tell you, Miss H., that I felt like a mother to them in the Church this morning."

These kindly memories of this great day pa.s.sed in reverie through the tear-charged heart of Wog.

But she was alone now, very much alone. She had adored Rita. Rita had flown away into another sphere. The Lulu Bird was a poor consoler!

Still, Wog"s sister Beatrice was sixteen now. She would have her to live with her and pay her fees for learning secretarial duties at Kensington College and Mr. Munford would find Bee a post... .