I am going back."

"Dear one, we will not argue," was the gentle response after a pause, during which the elder lady decided to change her tactics. "You are weak as yet, and must rest and grow strong. Thank G.o.d you need not decide at once, since the doctor would most certainly not sanction your travelling at present. I only touched upon this painful subject, because I wanted you to know that, without any treachery to Osbert, you have inadvertently allowed me to know how things stand between you and him, so there is no need for further concealment. You may rest safely in the knowledge that you have loving guardians who will not let you suffer from the caprice of a perverted mind."

"How long have I been ill?" asked Virginia, after a pause.

"This is Monday. You got home on Friday."

After a few minutes' silence, the invalid asked in her usual tones for news of Pansy and Tony. Pansy was wonderfully well. The air of Worthing was doing for her even more than the doctors expected. It was at the request of Dr. Danby that they had come to Worthing. He had a friend in practice there, in whose skill and kindness he had the utmost confidence. Pansy adored her new doctor, and the electric baths were proving a great success. Tony was out a great deal with his friend Mullins. Gerald had gone to town, but was coming down on Wednesday.

A tap on the door announced the doctor's visit. He was pleased to find the patient so much improved.

"When shall I be able to travel?" she asked him.

"Oh, some time next week, I hope," he answered comfortably.

Mrs. Mynors looked triumphant. She went out of the room with the doctor, and Virginia was left to her own reflections.

"_The caprice of a perverted mind!_" That phrase stuck in her head. It seemed to her that it did just exactly describe Gaunt's conduct. It is possible, however, that a perverted mind may be put right again, if it encounters some agency sufficiently powerful. When she was in town Dr. Danby had spoken to her of her husband.

"He was one of the most interesting boys I ever saw," had been his verdict. "I was very sorry for him. He was thoroughly mishandled, misunderstood, by the old ladies, his great-aunts, who were all the kith and kin he had."

(I can believe anything of them. They put the Chippendale in the attic, and furnished their dining-room in horsehair and mahogany, had been Virginia's inward comment.)

"I saw him several times during his university period. The authorities there thought as highly of him as I did. Then came the _debacle_.

Some girl, upon whom he fixed all his heart, failed him. He could not stand it. The weak spot in his nature was touched--his fatal tendency to concentrate violently upon one object. He went all to pieces for a while--dashed off abroad--and I lost touch with him."

It seemed to the girl, who revolved this information in her mind, that her own duty lay clear. If she could but overcome his prejudice, his perverted idea of her, might she not do something after all towards making him happy?

Mims had once praised her for her inveterate habit of doing her duty.

Easy enough had duty been when it was a case of Pansy and Tony. Now because duty was formidable and difficult, was she to shrink from it?

She covered her face with her hands, she stopped her ears against an imaginary voice. She would go back--she must go back.

But if Gerald joined in the argument, would she be able to resist?

Well she knew her mother, and she was positive that, being on such terms of confidence as she had lately established with young Rosenberg, she would tell him what she had inadvertently learned, of the true inwardness of Virginia's marriage. At the mere thought the girl writhed.

She was going back, whatever they said, whatever they did. She must and would go back, in fulfilment of her promise. Yet her mind was racked with the conflict. If she went back, if she entered the Beast's den a second time, it was final. Suppose the worst were to prove true?

Suppose that nothing she could do would disarm Gaunt, that he persisted in his hate, that he took delight in thwarting her, bullying her, frightening her? How vilely so ever he used her, _still she would have to be his wife._ He would shut her up in captivity, keep her from those she loved--and yet she would have to be his wife!

Could she bear it?

She remembered her own boast: "You can cut me to pieces with a knife if you choose, when I come back. Anything, if you will let me go to Pansy!"

Well, he had let her go. He had performed that, as he had performed his half of all points in the bargain between them. She, so far, had performed nothing at all. She had spent his money freely, and had lived away from him. Was her wild promise nothing but an empty boast, after all? Was she content to take these favours she had wrung from him, but to refuse to pay when pay-day came round?

All at once she knew that her mind was made up. She was going back.

She bounded out of bed, but soon found, when standing up, that she was far from fit to travel that day. She succeeded, however, in finding a writing block and a pencil, and returning to bed wrote a hasty line to Gaunt. In it she said only that she had had a tiresome chill, but that she was almost well, and intended to reach home without fail on Wednesday.

Her mother returned to the room just as she had sealed and stamped the letter.

"Good child!" said she, smiling, "I was just about to suggest that you should send Osbert a line to keep him quiet. You have told him what the doctor said, about hoping that you could travel next week?"

"I have told him I cannot travel to-day," replied Virginia; and Mrs.

Mynors carried off the letter to post.

CHAPTER XXIV

ESCAPE

"_But next day pa.s.sed, and next day yet With still some cause to wait one day more._"

--Robert Browning.

When Grover presently entered her room with lunch, Virginia was quick to perceive an estrangement. The woman's face was set in stern lines, and her eyes were cast down, except at such moments as she fancied that Virginia was not looking, when she sent furtive, searching glances at the wistful face upon the pillow.

Virginia wondered what had happened, But felt too languid to inquire, dreading that some kind of a scene might follow. By degrees she gathered, more from hint than direct speech, that the main grievance was being turned out of the room during the two nights of delirium.

After what her mother had just revealed, of her unconscious ravings, she could not but be thankful that Grover had not heard them. She did not know of the short dialogue which took place between the two deadly enemies, outside her door that morning.

Mrs. Mynors had arisen from the sofa and gone out to speak to Grover, who was in waiting outside with the early tea for her mistress, Virginia being still asleep.

"I hope Mrs. Gaunt's better, ma'am?" Grover asked, with prim frigidity.

"Better? Poor unhappy child! It might be better for her perhaps if there were no chance of her recovery," was the unlooked-for reply, delivered with exaggerated emphasis.

"Indeed, ma'am?"

"Yes, indeed, and indeed! G.o.d help her, poor innocent lamb! You need not think to keep anything dark in future, you and your wretched master! In her delirium the unhappy creature has let out everything.

And you--you must have known! You who came here with her as his spy!

Mounting guard over her night and day, lest she should let her people know of his diabolical cruelty. I have outwitted you, and now I know everything. I shall find means to protect my injured child!"

"I have no idea what you mean, ma'am," replied Grover, inflexibly respectful.

"Oh, no, of course not! You may as well drop the mask. I know you, and I know him," was the instant retort, as Mrs. Mynors, in her elegant wrapper, disappeared into her own room.

Grover went about all that day racking her brains as to what she ought to do. She was quite confident that she had been turned out of the room in order that these revelations--in which she did not believe--might be made, or be said to have been made. They were part, she was sure, of some plot or scheme which was being hatched. Ought she to write to Mr.

Gaunt, and tell him that she thought he had better come to Worthing and take his wife home? She was a slow-witted, but very sensible woman, and she feared that, should she take such a course, Gaunt might fear that things were more serious than they actually were. Yet she distrusted Mrs. Mynors profoundly, and watched her as closely as she could. She overheard her say to the doctor, outside Virginia's room:

"She ought to be kept very quiet; her nerves are all wrong. Mind you make her stay in bed as long as you can. Don't let her think of travelling till next week at the soonest."

She also saw her come out of the sick-room with the letter just written by Virginia to Gaunt in her hand. She carried it into her own room, and something in the way she looked at it produced in Grover an overpowering impression that she did not mean to forward it.

With a determination to ascertain, the woman knocked at the door some minutes later, and was sure she heard the rustle of paper and the hasty closing of a drawer before Mrs. Mynors told her to come in.