Part 5

“A question?”—she echoed it with a beating heart.

They stood there under the old trees in the lingering light, and, young and fine and fair as they both were, formed a complete superficial harmony with the peaceful English scene. A near view, however, would have shown that Godfrey Chart hadn’t taken so much trouble only to skim the surface. He looked deep into his sister’s eyes. “What was it you said that morning to Mrs. Churchley?”

She fixed them on the ground a moment, but at last met his own again. “If she has told you, why do you ask?”

“She has told me nothing. I’ve seen for myself.”

“What have you seen?”

“She has broken it off. Everything’s over. Father’s in the depths.”

“In the depths?” the girl quavered.

“Did you think it would make him jolly?” he went on.

She had to choose what to say. “He’ll get over it. He’ll he glad.”

“That remains to be seen. You interfered, you invented something, you got round her. I insist on knowing what you did.”

Adela felt that if it was a question of obstinacy there was something within her she could count on; in spite of which, while she stood looking down again a moment, she said to herself “I could be dumb and dogged if I chose, but I scorn to be.” She wasn’t ashamed of what she had done, but she wanted to be clear. “Are you absolutely certain it’s broken off?”

“He is, and she is; so that’s as good.”

“What reason has she given?”

“None at all—or half a dozen; it’s the same thing. She has changed her mind—she mistook her feelings—she can’t part with her independence. Moreover he has too many children.”

“Did he tell you this?” the girl asked.

“Mrs. Churchley told me. She has gone abroad for a year.”

“And she didn’t tell you what I said to her?”

Godfrey showed an impatience. “Why should I take this trouble if she had?”

“You might have taken it to make me suffer,” said Adela. “That appears to be what you want to do.”

“No, I leave that to you—it’s the good turn you’ve done me!” cried the young man with hot tears in his eyes.

She stared, aghast with the perception that there was some dreadful thing she didn’t know; but he walked on, dropping the question angrily and turning his back to her as if he couldn’t trust himself. She read his disgust in his averted, face, in the way he squared his shoulders and smote the ground with his stick, and she hurried after him and presently overtook him. She kept by him for a moment in silence; then she broke out: “What do you mean? What in the world have I done to you?”

“She would have helped me. She was all ready to help me,” Godfrey portentously said.

“Helped you in what?” She wondered what he meant; if he had made debts that he was afraid to confess to his father and—of all horrible things—had been looking to Mrs. Churchley to pay. She turned red with the mere apprehension of this and, on the heels of her guess, exulted again at having perhaps averted such a shame.

“Can’t you just see I’m in trouble? Where are your eyes, your senses, your sympathy, that you talk so much about? Haven’t you seen these six months that I’ve a curst worry in my life?”

She seized his arm, made him stop, stood looking up at him like a frightened little girl. “What’s the matter, Godfrey?—what is the matter?”

“You’ve gone against me so—I could strangle you!” he growled. This image added nothing to her dread; her dread was that he had done some wrong, was stained with some guilt. She uttered it to him with clasped hands, begging him to tell her the worst; but, still more passionately, he cut her short with his own cry: “In God’s name, satisfy me! What infernal thing did you do?”

“It wasn’t infernal—it was right. I told her mamma had been wretched,” said Adela.

“Wretched? You told her such a lie?”