With a sudden tragic gesture Anna hid her face in her hands.
“Oh!” she said. Her breath caught on a sob. “I was- afraid-afraid-he-” Her voice stopped.
“Out with it!” said Mr. Carthew. “Say what you were afraid of and have done with it-what!”
“I can’t,” said Anna, only just audibly.
Dr. Monk looked reproachfully across the table. Very affecting, this distress. Young scamp in a scrape. Lovely, tender-hearted girl. Old playfellow. Very distressing and affecting.
Mr. Carthew restrained himself, moderated his voice, and controlled a strong desire to take his niece by the shoulders and shake her.
“What were you afraid of?”
Anna shrank, but made no sound.
“You thought Car was a thief? Car Fairfax -your cousin- my nephew-a thief-what? You let Dr. Monk think so? You want to make me believe that he stole the Queen Anne bow? What, I say-what?”
Anna’s hands dropped from her face. Her face was wet.
Then she heard a sound from behind the heavy leather screen that masked the door. The door was opening-some one was coming in. She turned blindly to the window.
William came in with a note. She heard her uncle say,
“What’s this-what? I’m busy.” And then, with an exclamation, “No, not in here-the study!”
William’s footsteps retreated. She heard Mr. Carthew jerk himself up.
“I’ll say good morning, Monk. I’ve got business waiting for me, and you’d better be getting along-what? Leave her to find her tongue.”
He went out, taking Dr. Monk with him.
A faint wonder as to what was happening crept into her mind and disturbed it. She stood looking out, her thought clearing momentarily. She had felt a real fear under her uncle’s battering questions. A sense of having come to an end was upon her. Anna Lang was dead. She would never live here again. She would never see Car again. It was all over. Everything would go on without her after this. They would not remember her, or be troubled by anything that she had done. Car would not remember her when he had married Isobel. She couldn’t touch him, really. Burning up from the depths of her, came the desire to reach him, touch him, hurt him-force him to remember her. Like cold drops of this burning, fell the thought, “I shall never see him again.”
She heard the door open behind her, and turned from the window.
Car Fairfax was coming into the room.
XLII
Car Fairfax ’s diary:
When I found my money was gone, there was only one thing to do, and that was to get away from streets and paving-stones and houses, and find somewhere to lie down for an hour.
I was pretty well all in when I reached what I was looking for, a heathery common with clumps of trees here and there. It had kept dry, thank goodness; the damp in the air which had made the roofs wet and slippery a few hours ago had gone. The heather was dry enough. I flung myself down on it and fell into a deep pit of sleep. I didn’t dream and I didn’t move, for I woke in the very same position in which I had thrown myself down.
I opened my eyes and sat up feeling stiff, dirty, and ragingly hungry. I must have slept for a good many hours, for by the sun it was getting on for ten o’clock.
There was a sun shining over low mist. Some of the heather was still in bloom, the rest burnt red and brown. There were birches here and there, and young pines lifting out of the mist. The sky overhead was a very jolly pale blue. I glanced at my wrist watch. It was ten minutes to ten.
I did my best to clean myself up. My suit was in a frightful state. Besides the tear I knew about, there was another on the outside of my left sleeve. My hands looked as if I’d been cleaning a chimney with them. I found all that the drought had left of a pond, and got the worst of the grime off my face and hands. Then I had to find out where I was and get to Linwood.
I got there at eleven, and walked up to the front door feeling a good deal like a tramp. I wondered who would answer the bell. I was most awfully pleased when I saw William, because of course every one in the house might have changed for all I knew.
William hadn’t changed a bit-same red hair, same freckles, same crooked nose. He seemed most awfully pleased to see me.
I had looked at my watch just before I rang the bell, and I thought that if it was eleven o’clock, I had better give Anna her message from Arbuthnot Markham before I did anything else, because she’d probably be catching the twelve-fifteen, so I asked for her.
He said she was in the library, and then put in,
“Mr. Carthew’s just gone into the study, sir. Shall I tell him you’re here?”
I said, “No, wait a minute. I want to see Miss Anna first.” And then I crossed the hall and opened the library door.
Anna was over by the window. I got the impression that she had turned round in a hurry, and I’m sure I was the last person in the world she was expecting to see. She looked as if she had been crying.
I shut the door behind me and walked over to her.
“Good morning, Anna,” I said.
She didn’t say anything for a moment. She looked at me. I think she was trying to register shock, or something of that sort-or perhaps, for once in a way, she wasn’t trying.
Come to think of it, it really must have been a bit of a shock to see me walk in like that, when she’d been picturing me safely put away in a nice quiet police cell.
“How did you get here?” she said at last.
“On my feet,” I answered; and then, “I’ve got a message for you.”
“You have?”
“Yes-from your husband.”
She walked past me when I said that, until she came to Uncle John’s chair with the high carved back. She took hold of it and leaned there.
I went on giving her the message:
“He told me to tell you you’d have to cross alone. He’s gone on. He said some one would meet you. That’s all.”
I didn’t want to stop there and talk to her, so I turned round and began to walk to the door. I hadn’t gone a yard before she called me back.
“Is that all you’ve got to say to me?”
“Yes, that’s all of it-he didn’t tell me anything more. I’ve given you his message.”
She didn’t ask how he had come to tell me that. She stood holding the chair and looking at me across it. She had a bright color in her cheeks, a very bright color. I wished myself well out of the affair.
“A message!” she said in a deep, scornful sort of way. “Haven’t you anything to say to me from yourself?”
“I don’t know that I have, Anna,” I said.
“Nothing?”
“Or too much,” I said.
She pushed the chair away from her.
“Say it then!” she said violently.
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Why should I? You’d better be thinking about catching your train.”
“There’s time for that,” said Anna-“and there’s time for us to talk.”
I looked at my watch.
“Not so very much, if you’re going to leave Croydon at three.” I didn’t say it to provoke her. She hadn’t even got her hat on, and I thought she’d better not miss that train.
She took offense of course. I don’t know why, because she couldn’t really think I should have anything to say which she would enjoy hearing.
“Yes,” she said, “I’m leaving Croydon at three. I’m going out of England, and I’m going out of your life. But before I go-”
My temper was getting up, and I cut in.
“For heaven’s sake, Anna,” I said, “put on your hat and go to your husband! And cut out all this futile film stuff!”
“Oh, I’m futile?” said Anna. “Futile! That’s what you think of me, is it? I suppose I was futile when I turned you out of here? Futile? I had only to say a word to Uncle John and out you went-out of his house, out of his will, out of his thoughts-out of sight, out of mind. I did that! Was that futile?”
“Don’t you think it was?” I said.
She laughed.