The house, through all its innumerable rooms and corridors, sank into deep
silence. Lady Coryston was lying on her sofa, with closed eyes. All
the incidents of her conversation with Enid Glenwilliam were running
perpetually through her mind--the girl's gestures and tones--above all the
words of her final warning.
After all it was not she--his mother--who had done it. Without her it would
have happened all the same. She found herself constantly putting up this
plea, as though in recurrent gusts of fear. Fear of whom?--of Arthur? What
absurdity! Her proud spirit rebelled.
And yet she knew that she was listening--listening in dread--for a footstep
in the house. That again was absurd. Arthur was staying with friends on the
further side of the country, and was to leave them after dinner by motor.
He could not be home till close on midnight; and there would be no chance
of her seeing him--unless she sent for him--till the following morning,
after the arrival of the letter. _Then_--she must face him.
But still the footstep haunted her imagination, and the remembrance of him
as he had stood, light and buoyant, on the floor of the House of Commons,
making his maiden speech.
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