“Auntie’s just fallen …” (her voice died suddenly for an instant, as she saw him looking at her)—then she finished—“just fallen asleep. Will … you come up presently … Laurie?”
Every word was an effort, as she looked steadily into the eyes that looked so steadily into hers.
It was Laurie—yes—but, good God! …
“You must just kiss her and come away,” she said, driving out the words with effort after effort. “She has a bad headache this evening. … Laurie—a bad headache.”
With a sudden twitch she turned away from those eyes.
“Come, Laurie,” she said. And she heard his steps following her.
They passed so through the inner hall and upstairs: and, without turning again, holding herself steady only by the consciousness that some appalling catastrophe was imminent if she did not, she opened the door of the old lady’s room.
“Here he is,” she said. “Now, Laurie, just kiss her and come away.”
“My dearest,” came the old voice from the gloom, and two hands were lifted.
Maggie watched, as the tall figure came obediently forward, in an indescribable terror. It was as when one watches a man in a tiger’s den. … But the figure bent obediently, and kissed.
Maggie instantly stepped forward.
“Not a word,” she said. “Auntie’s got a headache. Yes, Auntie, he’s very well; you’ll see him in the morning. Go out at once, please, Laurie.”
Without a word he passed out, and, as she closed the door after him, she heard him stop irresolute on the landing.
“My dearest child,” came the peevish old voice, “you might have allowed my own son—”
“No, no, Auntie, you really mustn’t. I know how bad your head is … yes, yes; he’s very well. You’ll see him in the morning.”
(And all the while she was conscious of the figure that must be faced again presently, waiting on the landing.)
“Shall I go and see that everything’s all right in his room?” she said. “Perhaps they’ve forgotten—”
“Yes, my dearest, go and see. And send Charlotte to me.”
The old voice was growing drowsy again.
Maggie went out swiftly without a word. There again stood the figure waiting. The landing lamp had been forgotten. She led the way to his room.
“Come, Laurie,” she said. “I’ll just see that everything’s all right.”
She found the matches again, lighted the candles, and set them on his table, still without a look at that face that turned always as she went.
“We shall have to dine alone,” she said, striving to make her voice natural, as she reached the door.
Then once more she raised her eyes to his, and looked him bravely in the face as he stood by the fire.
“Do just as you like about dressing,” she said. “I expect you’re tired.”
She could bear it no more. She went out without another word, passed steadily across the length of the landing to her own room, locked the door, and threw herself on her knees.
III
She was roused by a tap on the door—how much later she did not know. But the agony was passed for the present—the repulsion and the horror of what she had seen. Perhaps it was that she did not yet understand the whole truth. But at least her will was dominant; she was as a man who has fought with fear alone, and walks, white and trembling, yet perfectly himself, to the operating table.
She opened the door; and Susan stood there with a candle in one hand and a scrap of white in the other.
“For you, miss,” said the maid.
Maggie took it without a word, and read the name and the penciled message twice.
“Just light the lamp out here,” she said. “Oh … and, by the way, send Charlotte to Mrs. Baxter at once.”
“Yes, miss …”
The maid still paused, eyeing her, as if with an unspoken question. There was terror too in her eyes.
“Mr. Laurie is not very well,” said Maggie steadily. “Please take no notice of anything. And … and, Susan, I think I shall dine alone this evening. Just a tray up here will do. If Mr. Laurie says anything, just explain that I am looking after Mrs. Baxter. And. … Susan—”
“Yes, miss.”
“Please see that Mrs. Baxter is not told that I am not dining downstairs.”
“Yes, miss.”
Maggie still stood an instant, hesitating. Then a thought recurred again.
“One moment,” she said.
She stepped across the room to her writing-table, beckoning the maid to come inside and shut the door; then she wrote rapidly for a minute or so, enclosed her note, directed it, and gave it to the girl.
“Just send up someone at once, will you, with this to Father Mahon—on a bicycle.”
When the maid was gone, she waited still for an instant looking across the dark landing, expectant of some sound or movement. But all was still. A line of light showed only under the door where the boy who was called Laurie Baxter stood or sat. At least he was not moving about. There in the darkness Maggie tested her power of resisting panic. Panic was the one fatal thing: so much she understood. Even if that silent door had opened, she knew she could stand there still.
She went back, took a wrap from the chair where she had tossed it down on coming in from the garden that afternoon, threw it over her head and shoulders, passed down the stairs and out through the garden once more in the darkness of the spring evening.
All was quiet in the tiny hamlet as she went along the road. A blaze of light shone from the taproom window where the fathers of families were talking together, and within Mr. Nugent’s shuttered shop she could see through the doorway the grocer himself in his shirtsleeves, shifting something on the counter. So great was the tension to which she had strung herself that she did not even envy the ordinariness of these
