“Theo,” she said to herself, while awaiting an answer to her summons at her own door, “must be of a very confiding nature. He expects such utter and such blind faith at the hands of others.”
The maid who opened the door was all eagerness to impart to her mistress certain vague details and incomprehensible sounds which had reached her curious ears. She had a thrilling tale of how Captain Huston, “lookin’ that funny about the eyes,” had rung loudly and pushed roughly through the open door; how there had been loud words in the drawing-room, and then a noise like “movin” a pianer’; how a silence had followed, and, finally, how Mr. Trist (and not Captain Huston, as might have been expected) had left just a minute ago. But the evening milkman was destined, after all, to receive the first and unabridged account of these events. Mrs. Wylie merely said, “That will do, Mary,” in her unruffled way, and passed on.
She entered the drawing-room, and found Brenda standing near the window, with one hand clasping the folds of the curtain.
Captain Huston was sitting on a low chair beside the fire, weeping gently. His bibulous sobs were the only sound that broke an unpleasant silence. Brenda was engaged in adding to her experiences of men and their ways a further illustration tending towards contempt. Her eyes were dull with pain, but she carried her small head with the usual demure serenity which was naught else but the outcome of a sweet, maidenly pride, as she advanced towards Mrs. Wylie.
“He is quite gentle and tractable now!” she whispered.
Mrs. Wylie took her hand within her fingers, clasping it with a soft protecting strength.
“Is he … tipsy?”
“No!” answered Brenda, with a peculiar catch in her breath; “he is only stupefied.”
“Stupefied … how?”
“I … I will tell you afterwards.”
The quick-witted matron had already discovered that some of her furniture was slightly displaced, so she did not press her question.
At this moment Captain Huston rose to his feet, and took up a position on the hearthrug.
“I do not know,” he said, with concentrated calmness, “whether the law has anything to say against people who harbour runaway wives; but, at all events, society will have an opinion on the subject.”
He ignored the fact that he had in no way greeted Mrs. Wylie, addressing his remarks to both ladies impartially. By both alike his attack was received in silence.
“I will find her,” he continued. “You need have no false hopes on that score. All the Theodore Trists in the world (which is saying much—for scoundrels are common enough) will not be able to hide her for long!”
Mrs. Wylie still held Brenda’s hand within her own. At the mention of Trist’s name there was an involuntary contraction of the white fingers, and the widow suddenly determined to act.
“Captain Huston,” she said gravely, “when you are calmer, if you wish to talk of this matter again, Brenda and I will be at your service. At present I am convinced that it is better for your wife to keep away from you—though I shall be the first to welcome a reconciliation.”
He shrugged his shoulders and walked slowly to the door. It was Brenda who rang the bell. Captain Huston passed out of the room without another word.
It would almost seem that the ingenuous Mary anticipated the call, for she was waiting in the passage to show Captain Huston out. She returned almost at once to the drawing-room, with a view (cloaked beneath a prepared question respecting tea) of satisfying her curiosity regarding the sound which had suggested the moving of a “pianer.” But there was no sign of disorder; everything was in its place, and Brenda was standing idly near the mantelpiece.
“We will take tea at once, Mary,” said Mrs. Wylie, unloosening her bonnet-strings.
Mary was forced to retire, meditating as she went over the inscrutability and coldness of the ordinary British lady.
“Ah!” sighed Mrs. Wylie, when the door was closed. “Now tell me, Brenda! What has happened? Did these two men meet here? I am quite in the dark, and have a sort of dazed feeling, as if I had been reading Carlyle at the French plays, and had got them mixed up.”
“Theo came first,” answered Brenda, “to warn us that Captain Huston had come home in the same steamer as himself, without, however, recognising him. While we were talking, the other came in. He did not see Theo, who was behind the door …”
“I suppose he was tipsy?”
“No; he was quite sober. He looked horrible. His eyes were bloodshot—his lips unsteady …”
Mrs. Wylie stopped the description with a sharp, painful nod of her head. To our shame be it, my brothers, she knew the rest!
“Was he quite clear and coherent?”
“Yes!”
“But … just now …” argued Mrs. Wylie, vainly endeavouring to make Brenda resume the narrative—“just now he was quite stupid?”
“Yes.”
“What happened, Brenda?”
At this moment Mary brought in the tea and set it briskly down on a small table. Brenda stepped forward, and began pouring out.
“What happened, Brenda?” repeated Mrs. Wylie, when the door was closed.
Then she approached, took the teapot from her hand, and by gentle force turned the motherless girl’s face towards herself.
“My darling,” she whispered, drawing the slim form to her breast, “why should you hide your tears from me?”
I have endeavoured to make it clear that this girl was not an emotional being. There were no hysterical sobs—merely a few silent tears, and the narrative was continued.
“He came in, and asked me to tell him where Alice was. I refused, and then …”
“Then … ?”
“He tried to hit me.”
“Tried … Brenda?”
“Well … he just reached me.”
“And … Theo?” asked Mrs. Wylie. “What did Theo do?”
There was a short pause, during which both ladies attended to their cups with an unnatural interest.
“I have never seen him like that before,” murmured the girl at length. “I did not know that men were ever like that. It was … rather terrible … almost suggestive of some wild
