The big bedstead on which Virginia lay was what used to be known as a "tester." It had a wooden canopy, and hangings of washed-out chintz.

There was an early Victorian mahogany wardrobe, big, heavy, ugly, and commodious. The rest of the furniture was in keeping. However, plenty of sunshine came in through the long windows, and there was a bunch of roses on a small table near the bed.

With her hair tumbling about her, Mrs. Gaunt looked like a child. He had a moment's horror as he met the nervous, shrinking dread in her lovely eyes. Was this a tragedy?

"I had no idea," stammered the patient, "no idea that my--husband had sent for a doctor. There is no need, I am well, I am only a little tired."

"Just what he told me," said Dymock good-humouredly. "I expect you are both right. You can't wonder at his being a bit anxious, can you?" He glanced up humorously at Grover, who had evidently had strict orders to remain, and who stood primly by the bed. She smiled, however, at his question.

"Indeed, sir, I think the master is quite right. Mrs. Gaunt is thoroughly overdone," said she. "I daresay he told you, sir, as he told us, that she has been going in for this here domestic science work.

Young ladies like her, sir, is not fit for it. If you'll believe me, she has been actually washing clothes! That is, she says she had in a woman to help, but it's a sin, sir, for the likes of her. However, now we've put our foot down"--she cast a glance of real kindness at the wistful creature lying there. "There's plenty of us here, sir, to wait on her, hand and foot; and in a few days you'll see she'll be a different thing--a different thing altogether. It is her knees I want you to look at particular, sir, after you've took her pulse, of course."

When the doctor came downstairs the bridegroom was standing at the hall door, his hands deep thrust in his pockets, gazing out gloomily over the thick and shadowy pinewood.

As Dymock approached, he turned, fixing his eyes upon him. The doctor stood, drawing on his riding gloves, and did not at first speak.

"Well?" said Gaunt at last, with an odd air of exploding.

"Well, I am a little puzzled. No doubt there is debility as a result of overwork, but there is more than that. To tell you the actual truth, your wife has been starving herself. You see, that is a queer, unnatural symptom. When a healthy girl starves herself, it means one of two things. Either her nerves are all to pieces--she is what we call hysterical--or in the alternative--why, she simply hasn't been able to get enough to eat. Now your wife shows no sign of hysteria that I can see, except for the undoubted fact that she is under-nourished. So----"

Gaunt folded his arms and looked away. "Dymock," he said unwillingly, "one's doctor keeps one's secrets--eh?"

Dymock raised his clear steady eyes and looked full at him. "I do," was all he said.

"Well, I fear it is true, that she is under-fed and over-worked. It has been cruel. I had no idea myself. She looks so, somehow, so unlike that."

"Yes, indeed. You mean that her over-exertion has been necessary?"

"I do."

"Well, I thought as much," replied Dymock, after a pause. "Some unscrupulous employer, I suppose. A good thing you rescued her. She is perfectly healthy and sound, but she won't be anything like robust for some time yet. I am forbidding solid food at present. She must have nourishment every two hours--eggs beaten up in milk, port wine, strong soup, Benger's food--things like that. In a few days her appet.i.te will return. But meanwhile she must be left perfectly quiet, Gaunt--you understand?"

"I understand perfectly. I give you my word for that."

"It won't be for long," said Dymock consolingly. "She is young, and she will pick up fast in this good air; her convalescence will be twice as rapid if you are considerate. She is in a state of acute nervous tension, and must be soothed; kept happy and quiet."

"Perhaps," said Gaunt, after a long pause, "it would be better if I do not see her at all, just at present. What do you think?"

"It all depends. Does it excite her to see you?"

"It might. Our marriage was sudden, you know. She hardly knows me."

"I think it should depend upon what she would like. Might it not distress her that you should keep away?"

"Perhaps."

"In a few days," went on the doctor, "she ought to go out, if it can be managed without her putting her feet to the ground. You have no motor, have you?"

"No."

"See here, Gaunt--forgive me if this sounds like interference, but the fact of your never having had any ladies to the house--your well-known tastes, or distastes--make things a bit difficult for your wife. She is all alone--there's n.o.body to come and see her, or cheer her up. I am going to make a bold suggestion. Young Mrs. Ferris is simply bursting with hospitable intentions, and, though she is a bit of a rough diamond, she is one of the best. They have a motor, and she has nothing else to do. Let me send her round in a day or two to call upon Mrs.

Gaunt?"

Gaunt's brow lowered. "A woman with a voice like a fog-horn----"

"No beauty, I grant you, but a real good sort, and your only near neighbour. Let her drive Mrs. Gaunt about, show her the Peak, take her shopping to Buxton, import some light literature from the circulating library--something to pa.s.s the time."

"It may be that you are right," replied Gaunt after some hesitation. "I don't want visitors yet, but if Mrs. Ferris would understand that she is quite an exception----"

"It would double her desire to be of use," laughed the doctor. "Well, good day. I'll send along a tonic, and I think I should like to see your wife again to-morrow."

"Come as often as you think wise."

The clatter of the hoofs of the doctor's mare died away along the wooded aisles. Gaunt remained standing, his head bent, his hands locked behind his back. He hardly knew what he felt, what dominating impulse would emerge out of the present confusion of a mind which for more than twenty years had been swayed by one sole idea.

The surroundings upon which his moody gaze was fixed were the scene of that accident which had done much to warp his temperament, to give a twist to a disposition which from birth had been pa.s.sionate and what is known as "difficult." The kind of boy who would have been saved by the devotion of a mother who understood him, he had been left doubly an orphan at an age so early that he had but a confused memory even of his mother's face. His old great-aunts at Omberleigh knew nothing of boys.

During his summer vacation he stayed with them and ran wild among the men servants.

He was about fifteen years old, a wilful, even violent-tempered lad, when he disobeyed a direct order by going for a ride upon the bailiff's horse, an uncertain-tempered brute, who could be controlled only by his master. Contrary to his own expectation, all had gone well. He was returning in triumph up the drive, off his guard, exulting in his successful bit of disobedience, when something white rushed across the road. It was a shirt, blown from an adjacent clothes-line by the fury of the gale, and flying upon the wind like some wild ghost, flapping, rolling, staggering. As if in sheer malice, it shot out from among the tree-trunks, and wrapped itself momentarily over the eyes of the outraged steed, which swerved, terrified, and bolted into the wood.

Madly the creature strove to thrust itself in between the close-growing pines. Pluckily the boy clung to his seat, though knocked violently against one obstacle after another in his hurtling progress. Finally, the horse attempted to rush through a narrow s.p.a.ce between two extra strong and large trees, and the rider came off, but not before one leg had been horribly crushed in the struggle.

His right knee proved to be so badly lacerated that amputation was at first thought inevitable. By the skill of the surgeon this was obviated, but the snapping of a tendon produced a life-long stiffness of the joint and for a year or two prevented his indulging in any kind of athletics.

The isolation of mind and body which resulted fostered his already existing tendency to morbidity. At Oxford he withdrew himself as much as he could from society, becoming more morose as his former friends, tired of being repulsed, left him by degrees more and more to himself.

At Oxford, one Commemoration week, he met the beautiful Virginia Sheringham, and fell so violently in love that his natural reserve was swept out of sight, and he conquered by sheer force of will. This girl became his idol, his universe, his obsession. For her he would work unceasingly, remove mountains, make a name, make a fortune.

Perhaps he should have thought himself lucky that so fascinating a young lady endured a whole year of so unpromising an engagement. At first she was taken off her feet by the violence of his pa.s.sion, the impetuosity of his wooing. Very soon, however, her natural prudence began to get the upper hand. What, she very properly asked herself, could be the outcome of this long-drawn affair? The love-letters which at first had been so irresistible, inevitably palled on repet.i.tion.

Moreover, one cannot buy new frocks with love-letters. Perhaps she announced the end of it all too suddenly. Yet it is doubtful whether any preliminary hinting could have made Osbert believe that his adored one could possibly be contemplating the treachery of jilting him.

The thing was done. It had to be done, for Virginia had given her lover a whole year, and a maiden's market is short. Unfortunately, the young man involved belonged to that pitiable but happily small minority with whom to love seems final, who cannot rally from the blow given by the beloved hand.

Everything was against Gaunt's recovery. He had no friends. His nearest relatives were the old great-aunts at Omberleigh, who understood him not at all, and liked him but little. During his engagement he flung away every other interest, every other resource, to give himself up to the pa.s.sion which filled him. His jilting was for him the end of all things. For the first few years he disappeared from England, became a special correspondent at out-of-the-way spots such as Valparaiso, visited such outposts of empire as the Solomon Islands. Then the last surviving aunt pa.s.sed away from Omberleigh. He found that the place was his, and he decided to occupy it, since he had formed a plan which needed residence in England for its maturing.

He had thought, during those years of wandering, upon one subject only.

The behaviour of Virginia Sheringham had been brought to the bar of his judgment. She had been tried, and found guilty on every count. She had been treacherous, light, covetous, cruel, selfish, and callous. For these things he decided that she deserved punishment. Why should he suffer as for years he had suffered, while the criminal went scot free?

He had money now. Money was power. One day his turn would come. He could wait for it.

As the waiting went on he grew used to it. He lived in an atmosphere of it. One day this long-planned thing would happen, this long-prepared design would materialise. He hardly noticed the flight of the years. He hardly noticed any material or outward circ.u.mstances, except the development of his land. He lived in the nursing, the contemplation, the fondling, of an idea of future vengeance and retribution, when Virginia Sheringham should be at his mercy, and should plead to him--and plead in vain.

When at last the scheme did really mature, when the mortgage fell in, he could hardly realise that this had actually happened. He felt dazed, like a man who has lived for years in the dark when he is faced with sudden daylight.

It was all happening so ludicrously as he had foreseen. Mrs. Mynors had found out who was the mortgagee, and she had made an appeal--just the kind of appeal he had expected. He found himself taking a ticket for a journey to London for the first time during years.

There was nothing to do in London. To wait patiently there was by no means the easy matter that it was in the country, in the midst of his own work upon his own land. To occupy himself he went and saw pictures.

He had a taste for pictures, though he never indulged it by buying any.