The good woman's eyes grew very round. "Why, sir, you was here when I came," said she. "I concluded you knew all about it. My part was only to see as the things didn't perish, for I have a kind of liking myself for all them antiquities."

Gaunt's eyes were still dancing over the Adam joke; and his wandering gaze had strayed to the mantel, and realised that this was of the same period. Doubtless what made these walnut carved whatnots and arm-chairs look so wrong was their silent clash with the fine simplicity of the dental moulding. As his eye wandered over the faded pink wallpaper, with its brown, green and blue roses, he suddenly perceived, like a man whose eyes are newly opened, that the room was moulded for panels. It struck him that this was the treatment required.

"So Mrs. Gaunt liked the things?"

"Indeed, yes, sir. She said how she would like to use them. I can show you the exact pieces she picked out, sir."

"Come along," said Gaunt impetuously. Here was a glorious idea. Here was something to fill in blank days of waiting! Virgie should find her own room at least habitable; incomplete, of course, and waiting for her touch, but not impossible as at present. It would welcome her, when she came back--_when she came back!_

Would she come?

CHAPTER XX

A CASE FOR INTERPOSITION?

"_Why, here you have the awfulest of crimes For nothing! h.e.l.l broke loose on a b.u.t.terfly!

Yet here is the monster! Why, he's a mere man-- Born, bred and brought up in the usual way._"

--R. Browning.

It was six o'clock in the evening. Virginia stepped from the door of the Nursing Home out into Queen Anne Street with a radiant face.

She left Pansy smiling, content, in the hands of people who were not merely experts, but kind and loving. The daily improvement grew more marked. Dr. Danby that day had spoken more encouragingly than ever before. The delight of it, the fascination of watching colour steal back to the cheeks, and light to the eyes; while the awful look of pain vanished from the lines of the mouth, leaving it a child's mouth once more--this was enfolding the elder sister in a sweetness which it seemed no dark future had power to impair. Gaunt was far from her mind; she was living in the present moment--living within the walls of the room that contained Pansy.

A man came rapidly along the street towards her, on the same side of the way. Just as she turned into Portland Place she came face to face with him. It was Gerald Rosenberg. His start of surprise was admirably done. As to Virgie, in the first moment, she was merely glad to see him--ready to take him into the joy that filled her, to share with him her glow of thankfulness and hope.

"Oh!" She stopped, giving him her hand, looking into his face with those eyes that had seemed to him so fathomless as to cause him to hesitate before letting his very being drown in their depths. Now it seemed that they were changed. The girl was, somehow, mysteriously a woman. She retained all her innocence, all her girlish candour, but there was something more, something heroic and splendid. At any rate, it appeared so to the man's enchanted gaze.

"This is indeed good fortune"--he hardly knew what he said. "I heard that you were in town, but hardly hoped--why did you not let Mims know of your being here?"

"Oh, that is easily answered. I have been devoted, body and soul, to my little sister. The first few nights I was in town I spent at the Home, for we did not even know that she would live. I have not had a moment for my friends."

"But she is better now?"

"Yes, thank G.o.d! I can hardly speak of it." The tears welled up and misted the changeful eyes. "It is so wonderful--so unspeakable--seeing her, as it were, coming back to me from the grave. If she had died, I can't think what I should have done."

"I remember Mims always said you were such a devoted sister."

Virgie laughed. "So would anybody be devoted to Pansy," she replied cheerfully. "But I am consumed with curiosity. You say that you had heard I was in London. Do tell me how you heard it."

His lip curled and his expression changed. "I heard it from the person most likely to know. Mr. Gaunt told me."

"Mr. Gaunt!" It was too sudden. Usually she had herself perfectly in hand, but the thought of the Ogre, intruding upon her moment of bliss, touched her inmost feeling, and she grew as white as a sheet. Gerald's eyes never left her face. He saw that pallor, saw the fugitive glance of panic that pa.s.sed across the eyes like a cloud over the sun. It was so, then; it was as he had feared, as he had secretly known! She had been bought by that malevolent-looking man--the creature who had marked her down in the picture gallery, had pursued, hunted, caught, led captive! The feelings in the young man's heart were for a moment so violent that he could not speak.

Virginia and he had turned mechanically as he uttered the fatal name, and they now began to walk down Portland Place, towards Regent's Street side by side. "Somehow," said her soft voice at last, "it seems very surprising to me that you should have met Mr. Gaunt. Do tell me how it came about. I--I believed that he was at home--in Derbyshire."

The speech showed him the measure of her apprehension. She had thought herself free of her tyrant for a while, and now supposed him to have followed her to London.

"Oh, it was in Derbyshire that I met him," he hastened to a.s.sure her.

"At the house of some people called Ferris. I went down to interview Ferris about a company that he wants to float--a lead-mine. Your husband was lunching there."

"Lunching at Perley Hatch?" She seemed surprised, he thought.

"Yes. On the same line as I was, I fancy. We all went and had a look at the cave afterwards. I think my father will accept a directorship, and probably Mr. Gaunt also will come on the board."

Before reflecting, she cried, in a pleased voice: "Then does that mean that we shall see something of you? Shall you be coming down sometimes to Derbyshire?"

Gerald almost choked. There was so much to say about this that he knew he had better say nothing. Yet, as in her case, words leaped to his lips before he reflected. "I hardly know. It is a question as to how much I could bear."

"How much you could bear?" Her eyes were raised, astonished, troubled.

He knew that if he said what was in his mind, his present chance might vanish in a moment. "I won't say what I meant," he replied in a low tone. "Why should I force my troubles on you? You have enough anxiety with your little sister. But is it too late to get some tea?"

"Oh, yes, I have had tea, thanks!"

"Where are you staying? "

"In Margaret Street--my mother is with me."

"Indeed? Do you think she would receive me, if I were to pay a short call?"

"I am sure she would be pleased. But you will not find her at home now; she has gone to the theatre."

"At this hour?"

"She is dining at her club first. She does not like lodging-house food."

"Do you?"

"Oh, food makes very little difference to me. I put up with it, for I am too tired to go and dine out, after a long day with Pansy."

"I wish you would come and dine with me. I know a charming place quite near here, where they give you Italian things--you are so fond of Italy. Let me take you and give you something to eat, and then you shall go straight back to your rooms and rest. There is so much I want to hear."

Her brows knit. "I have nothing to tell you," she answered slowly.

He blamed himself for having risked the last sentence.

She seemed to turn over his offer in her mind. At last: "No," she said, but he felt with reluctance. "I can't come this evening. I am tired and stupid. Some other evening, if you will ask us both."

"Then must I go and dine alone at my club? My father and Mims are in Switzerland, and I am all alone."

"Oh!" Her pity was awake at once. "I did not know."

"Because you are tired is just why you should come," he went on. "I'm not a stranger, some one whom you must exert yourself to entertain. I'm your friend, am I not, Virgie?"