Part 203

Nothing existed for her but the fear that hung round Brodrick in his bed. This vision of calamity was unspeakable, it was worse than all the calamities that had actually been. It was worse through its significance and premonition than the illness of her little son; it was worse than the loss of her little dead-born daughter; it brought back to her with a more unendurable pang that everlasting warning utterance of Nina's, "With you--there'll be no end to your paying." Her heart cried out to powers discerned as implacable, "Anything but that! Anything but that!"

She had missed the first possible train to Waterloo, but there was another from a station five miles distant which would bring her home early in the evening. She packed hurriedly and sent one of the farm people to the village for a fly. Then she paced the room, maddening over the hours that she had still to spare.

Once or twice it occurred to her that perhaps, after all, Hugh was not so very ill. If he had been Henry would have told her. He would have suggested the propriety of her return. And Henry's brief reference to Dartmoor had suggested continuance rather than return.

But her fear remained with her. It made her forget all about George Tanqueray.

It was the sudden striking of ten o'clock that recalled to her her certainty that he would come. And he was there in the doorway before her mind had time to adjust itself to his appearance.

She fell on him with Hugh's illness as if it were a weapon and she would have slain him with it.

He stood back and denied the fact she hurled at him. As evidence supporting his denial, he produced his recent correspondence with the editor. He had heard from him that morning, and he was all right then. Jinny was being "had," he said.

He had not come there to talk about Brodrick, or to think about him. He was not going to let Jinny think about him either.

He had come early because he wanted to find her with all the dreams of the night about her, before her passion (he was sure of it) could be overtaken by the mood of the cool morning.

Jinny had begun to pack her manuscript (she had forgotten it till now) in the leather case it travelled in. She had a hat with a long veil on. Tanqueray's gaze took in all this and other more unmistakable signs of her departure.

"What do you think you're doing?" he said.

"I'm going back."

"Why?"

"Haven't I told you?"

Positively he had forgotten Brodrick.

He began all over again and continued, tenderly, patiently, with all his cold, ascendant, dispassionate lucidity, till he had convinced her that her fear was folly.

She was grateful to him for that.

"All the same," she said, "I'm going. I wasn't going to stay here in any case."

"You were going?"

"Yes."

"And do you suppose I'm going to let you go? After last night?"

"After--last--night--I must go. And I must go back."

"No. Remember what you said to me last night. We know ourselves and we know each other now as God knows us. We're not afraid of ourselves or of each other any more."

"No," she said. "I am not afraid."

"Well--you've had the courage to get so far, why haven't you the courage to go on?"

"You think I'm a coward still?"

"A coward." He paused. "I beg your pardon. I forgot that you had the courage to go back."

Her face hardened as they looked at each other.