"Beg pardon, ma'am, but should I take Mrs. Gaunt's letter to post? It's almost time."

"Thanks, I have just sent it off."

This made the servant certain that her suspicion was correct. She went slowly into Virginia's room, more and more perplexed as to what she ought to do, and wondering what were her mistress's own feelings in the matter. Since the Bignor episode, she had been so shaken in her faith in Virginia that she was half ready to believe that it was a case of like mother, like daughter, and that the dainty b.u.t.terfly would never return to gloomy Omberleigh. The idea filled her with resentment. "His fault," she muttered to herself. "Such a place, enough to give you a fit of the blues, dirty and dull and drab; he ought to have had it all done up for her--make her think that he wanted to please her! He don't know enough to go indoors when it rains, not where a woman's concerned, that's very certain. But, oh, gracious goodness, what will happen to him if she turns out a light one? It's my belief he'd never stand it.

He'd go mad or cut his throat."

Gloomily she ran ribbons into under-linen, made the bed, and went about her usual sick-room duties. All the time she was wondering whether she could not "say something." The difficulty lay in thinking what to say.

Virginia was very quiet--unusually so. When Grover had gone out, she locked the door, put on a dressing-gown, and sat up by the fire. She found herself stronger than she had thought. Her fever having pa.s.sed, she was all right. She was certain that there was no reason why she should not travel on Wednesday; but she determined to say nothing about it to her mother.

When next Mrs. Mynors came in to see her, she was lying with eyes half closed, and whispered that she felt very weak, and was not equal to talking. This was satisfactory, and the visitor crept away.

Next morning the girl, with the elasticity of youth, awoke feeling very much better. Grover could not but remark it. Yet, when her mother came in, she was languid and monosyllabic.

She could not, however, escape a renewal of the bombardment of yesterday, with regard to her return to Omberleigh. Mrs. Mynors brought in her work after lunch, and attacked the subject with determination.

She was met with a meekness which surprised her. Virginia owned that she was at present too unwell to face anything difficult--to undergo any trying experience. Next week it would be different. She thought they might postpone serious discussion. The wind was somewhat taken out of her opponent's sails, but there was no doubt this depression and invalidism was satisfactory in her eyes. She made, as she thought, quite certain that her daughter had no intention of travelling at present.

"I'm sure Osbert does not expect me. He has not written at all. He is waiting to hear again, I suppose."

"Not written! When I told him how ill you are! Oh, Virgie, what a brute the man is!"

The speaker omitted to mention that in her letter to her son-in-law she had begged him not to write to Virgie, as his letters "agitated her unaccountably," and that she herself had heard from him that morning to the effect that he hoped a doctor had been called in.

She went away after a while, and wrote to Gerald in town.

"I think there is no doubt she is growing to see that we are right,"

she wrote. "I am letting her come along at her own pace. The discovery that we know her secret has shaken her, and she has at least given up all idea of travelling at present. That being so, I shall run up to town to-morrow morning, as there are several things I must do. You and I can return here together in the evening. I will come up by the early express, and if you were to take tickets for the matinee at the Criterion, I should not object. One gets so bored here with invalids all day."

That night when Grover came into the room to make the final arrangements, she found Mrs. Mynors there, in the act of saying good night to a limp and disconsolate daughter.

"I am running up to town on business by the 8:4 to-morrow, Grover,"

said she, turning round with that alarming sweetness which convinced the hearer that some demand upon her good-nature would be immediately made. "I wonder whether, while you are making Mrs. Gaunt's tea to-morrow morning, you would bring me a cup; these lodging-house people are so disagreeable about a little thing like that! Bring it at seven o'clock sharp, if you would be so kind."

"Very well, mum," replied Grover in her gruffest tones, which were very gruff indeed.

"Good-bye, my precious; rest well," murmured the lady, bending over the bed. "We shall cheer up when Gerald comes back, and if you are very good I will beg the doctor to let you get up on Thursday."

"If I feel well enough," sighed Virginia, closing her eyes.

Grover felt all her distrust reviving. She was certain that Virgie was feeling almost completely recovered. Was there anything up? Some plot?

Had young Rosenberg planned for the mother to be away in town while he came down here and carried off Virginia in his car?

She turned from the closing of the door upon Mrs. Mynors' exit, with a very grim mouth. The patient was sitting bolt upright in bed, with an expression so changed, so alert, that she paused just where she stood, in amazement.

"Grover," panted the girl, in a shaken, excited voice, "come here; I want to speak to you."

Grover approached, slowly and doubtfully, suspicion written all over her. When she was quite near, Virginia drew her down so that she sat upon the bed, and put her arms round her, laying her head upon a singularly unresponsive bosom.

"Grover, I want you to help me," she whispered. "I am going to do something desperate--something secret--and I can't do it unless you stand by me."

The woman paused. She was angry with herself for being influenced, as influenced she undoubtedly was, by the clinging arms, and the nestling golden head. "Now, what have you got in your head, ma'am?" she asked, as coldly as she could. She almost jumped when she heard the reply.

"_I want you to help me run away._"

"Never!" Putting aside the girlish embrace, she rose to her feet, her homely face stern and reproachful. "Never! Not while I'm in his service! He may have scared you, as your mother tells me he has, but if so, you should have known better. It's only because you know so little of him, and he so unused to women. Oh, my dear, my dear, I don't suppose for a minute you'll listen to me, but I must say it! You go back, my dear, and do your duty! Your place is there, with him! You chose him, and it's G.o.d's law that you should cleave to him, though I have no right to be talking like this, ma'am, but if it was the last word I ever said----"

"Grover, Grover," cried Virginia, grasping a solid arm and shaking it, "what on earth are you talking about? Isn't that just what I want you to do? To take me back to Omberleigh? What did you think I meant?"

Grover's face was a study. It was as though layer after layer of gloom and apprehension pa.s.sed from its surface.

"That what you mean? Run away _home_?" she panted.

"To Omberleigh, yes." She could not bring her lips to utter the word _home_, but Grover did not remark such a detail, though Gaunt had noted it fast enough in the letter she wrote him the previous week.

"I don't know whether it is that my chill has made me a little mad,"

whispered Virgie, "but I feel as if I am in prison. I feel as if they had made up their minds that I should not go back, and you know I must.

I have overstayed my time already."

"Well, ma'am, if that's what you want, to go back where you belong, you shall go, though an army stood in the way," cried Grover, with such goodwill that Virgie flung her arms round her again, this time to meet with a warm response. Then she slid out of bed, and stood, her arms outstretched, making graceful motions to show that she was strong and vigorous.

"I am a horrid little cheat," she said, smiling. "I am afraid I tried to make mother think I was feeling very bad, so that she might not be afraid to go off by the early train and leave me! Grover, I have looked up all the trains. You must pack to-night, and we can get to town by one o'clock. We must go straight through; there is a train with a dining-car, getting us to Derby at 6:34, and we can wire for the car to meet us. I hope I am not being very silly, but it seems to me the only way to get free of it all. Another thing is the parting from Pansy. I shall go without saying anything at all to her, and leave a letter for her. She is so happy here, she will not really miss me, and it will save her a bad fit of crying if I slip away. Me, too, for that matter,"

she added, colouring. "I can't help feeling the parting, you know, Grover."

"That I well believe, ma'am, but it is for a time. She is doing so nicely that she will be able to come to Omberleigh before long, and think how she will enjoy lying on the terrace and playing with Cosmo and Damian."

Virgie had to laugh, though a pang shot through her heart. Little did this good, loyal Grover know the dreadful truth!

At the thought of the malice that awaited her, the unknown suffering in store, she flinched, and for a moment felt faint. Then she rallied.

This precipitate flight was, she knew, her only chance of preserving her self-respect. When Gerald returned, it would all be different somehow. Now, before she had time to think, she must make her dash for duty. What she had said in her delirium she knew not; but she knew well enough that, during those confidential moments, seated in the field below the Roman Villa, she had admitted her marital unhappiness, and that Gerald had understood.

"I can't understand one thing," she said, as she lay watching Grover draw out her trunk, open it, and begin her packing methodically. "And that is, why Mr. Gaunt has not written to me since I took my chill."

"I think I can tell you, ma'am. It is because your letters to him have been stopped."

"Grover!"

"If, when we get home, ma'am, you find that he has had the letter you wrote this afternoon, why, I'll beg your mamma's pardon for what I have said. But I am sure she opened it, and I don't believe she ever sent it to post. Another thing, ma'am. Muriel (the lodging-house maid) told me that Mrs. Mynors had a letter with the Manton postmark yesterday. Why didn't she tell you she had heard?"

"I thought it so strange he did not write," said Virgie, knitting puzzled brows. "But, Grover, they have no right to do such things! Even if mamma thinks, as she seems to think, that he--Mr. Gaunt--is not--I mean, if she does not like him, and does not want me to go away, she has no right to tamper with letters, do you think?"

"It's not for me, ma'am, to pa.s.s any remarks upon what your mamma does.

But I think it is for me to let you know she done it," replied Grover, with demure emphasis. Virgie could not help smiling, in spite of her tumultuous emotions.

Grover proved a most able accomplice and conspirator. She duly brought tea to Mrs. Mynors next morning, and said, in subdued tones, that Mrs.

Gaunt had not pa.s.sed a very good night. She was now sleeping, and had better not be disturbed. Would Mrs. Mynors mind slipping downstairs without coming into her room?