THE PASSING BELL
The following morning Sir Nigel did not appear at the breakfast table.He breakfasted in his own room, and it be came known throughout the household that he had suddenly decided to go away, and his man was packing for the journey.
What the journey or the reason for its being taken happened to be were things not explained to anyone but Lady Anstruthers, at the door of whose dressing room he appeared without warning, just as she was leaving it.
Rosalie started when she found herself confronting him.His eyes looked hot and hollow with feverish sleeplessness.
"You look ill," she exclaimed involuntarily."You look as if you had not slept.""Thank you.You always encourage a man.I am not in the habit of sleeping much," he answered."I am going away for my health.It is as well you should know.I am going to look up old Broadmorlands.I want to know exactly where he is, in case it becomes necessary for me to see him.I also require some trifling data connected with Ffolliott.If your father is coming, it will be as well to be able to lay my hands on things.You can explain to Betty.Good-morning." He waited for no reply, but wheeled about and left her.
Betty herself wore a changed face when she came down.Acloud had passed over her blooming, as clouds pass over a morning sky and dim it.Rosalie asked herself if she had not noticed something like this before.She began to think she had.Yes, she was sure that at intervals there had been moments when she had glanced at the brilliant face with an uneasy and yet half-unrealising sense of looking at a glowing light temporarily waning.The feeling had been unrealisable, because it was not to be explained.Betty was never ill, she was never low-spirited, she was never out of humour or afraid of things--that was why it was so wonderful to live with her.But--yes, it was true--there had been days when the strong, fine light of her had waned.Lady Anstruthers' comprehension of it arose now from her memory of the look she had seen the night before in the eyes which suddenly had gazed straight before her, as into an unknown place.
"Yes, I know--I know--I know!" And the tone in the girl's voice had been one Rosy had not heard before.
Slight wonder--if you KNEW--at any outward change which showed itself, though in your own most desperate despite.It would be so even with Betty, who, in her sister's eyes, was unlike any other creature.But perhaps it would be better to make no comment.To make comment would be almost like asking the question she had been forbidden to ask.
While the servants were in the room during breakfast they talked of common things, resorting even to the weather and the news of the village.Afterwards they passed into the morning room together, and Betty put her arm around Rosalie and kissed her.
"Nigel has suddenly gone away, I hear," she said."Do you know where he has gone?""He came to my dressing-room to tell me." Betty felt the whole slim body stiffen itself with a determination to seem calm."He said he was going to find out where the old Duke of Broadmorlands was staying at present.""There is some forethought in that," was Betty's answer."He is not on such terms with the Duke that he can expect to be received as a casual visitor.It will require apt contrivance to arrange an interview.I wonder if he will be able to accomplish it?""Yes, he will," said Lady Anstruthers."I think he can always contrive things like that." She hesitated a moment, and then added: "He said also that he wished to find out certain things about Mr.Ffolliott--`trifling data,' he called it--that he might be able to lay his hands on things if father came.
He told me to explain to you."
"That was intended for a taunt--but it's a warning," Betty said, thinking the thing over."We are rather like ladies left alone to defend a besieged castle.He wished us to feel that."She tightened her enclosing arm."But we stand together--together.We shall not fail each other.We can face siege until father comes.""You wrote to him last night?"
"A long letter, which I wish him to receive before he sails.
He might decide to act upon it before leaving New York, to advise with some legal authority he knows and trusts, to prepare our mother in some way--to do some wise thing we cannot foresee the value of.He has known the outline of the story, but not exact details--particularly recent ones.I have held back nothing it was necessary he should know.I am going out to post the letter myself.I shall send a cable asking him to prepare to come to us after he has reflected on what Ihave written."
Rosalie was very quiet, but when, having left the room to prepare to go to the village, Betty came back to say a last word, her sister came to her and laid her hand on her arm.
"I have been so weak and trodden upon for years that it would not be natural for you to quite trust me," she said."But I won't fail you, Betty--I won't."The winter was drawing in, the last autumn days were short and often grey and dreary; the wind had swept the leaves from the trees and scattered them over park lands and lanes, where they lay a mellow-hued, rustling carpet, shifting with each chill breeze that blew.The berried briony garlands clung to the bared hedges, and here and there flared scarlet, still holding their red defiantly until hard frosts should come to shrivel and blacken them.The rare hours of sunshine were amber hours instead of golden.
