"It isn't too late; you can have the time all over again by starting afresh, and trying to wipe out the past. You're so young. Why, Jimmy is only a boy; you've got all your lives before you." She got up and went round to where Christine was sitting. She put an arm about her shoulders. "Why don't you forgive him, and start again? Give him another chance, dear, and have a second honeymoon."

Christine pushed her away; she started up with burning cheeks.

"You don't know what you're talking about. Leave me alone--oh, do leave me alone." She ran from the room.

She lay awake half the night thinking of what Gladys had said. She tried to harden her heart against Jimmy. She tried to remember only that he had married her out of pique; that he cared nothing for her--that he did not really want her. As a sort of desperate defence she deliberately thought of Kettering; he liked her, she knew. She was not too much of a child to understand what that look in his eyes had meant, that sudden pressure of his hand on hers.

And she liked him, too. She told herself defiantly that she liked him very much; that she would rather have been with him over at Heston that afternoon than up in town with Jimmy. Kettering at least sought and enjoyed her society, but Jimmy----

She clenched her hands to keep back the blinding tears that crowded to her eyes. What was she crying for? There was nothing to cry for; she was happy--quite happy; she was away from Jimmy--away from the man whose presence had only tortured her during those last few days; she was at home--at Upton House, and Kettering was there whenever she wanted him. She hoped he would come in the morning again; that he would come quite early. After breakfast she wandered about the house restlessly, listening for the sound of his car in the drive outside; but the morning dragged away and he did not come.

Christine ate no lunch; her head ached, she said pettishly when Gladys questioned her. No, she did not want to go out; there was nowhere to go.

And all the time her eyes kept turning to the window again and again restlessly.

Gladys did not know what to do; she was hoping and praying in her heart that Kettering would do as she had asked him, and stay away. What was the good of him coming again? What was the good of him making himself indispensable to Christine? The day pa.s.sed wretchedly. Once she found Christine huddled up on the sofa crying; she was so miserable, she sobbed; n.o.body cared for her; she was so lonely, and she wanted her mother.

Gladys did all she could to comfort her, but all the time she was painfully conscious of the fact that had Kettering walked into the room just then there would have been no more tears.

Sometimes she thought that it only served Jimmy Challoner right; sometimes she told herself that this was his punishment--that Fate was fighting him with his own weapons, paying him back in his own coin; but she knew such thoughts were mere foolishness.

He and Christine were married, no matter how strongly they might resent it. The only thing left to them was to make the best they could of life.

She sat with Christine that night till the girl was asleep. She was not very much Christine's senior in years, but she felt somehow old and careworn as she sat there in the silent room and listened to the girl's soft breathing.

She got up and went over to stand beside her.

So young, such a child, it seemed impossible that she was already a wife, this girl lying there with her soft hair falling all about her.

Gladys sighed and walked over to the window. It must be a great thing to be loved, she thought rather sadly; n.o.body had ever loved her; no man had ever looked at her as Kettering looked at little Christine. . . . She opened the window and looked out into the darkness.

It was a mild, damp night. Grey mist veiled the garden and shut out the stars; everything was very silent.

If only Christine's mother had been here to take the responsibility of it all, she thought longingly; she had so little influence with Christine herself. She closed the window and went back to the bedside.

Christine was moving restlessly. As Gladys looked down at her she began to laugh in her sleep--a little chuckle of unaffected joy.

Gladys smiled, too, involuntarily. She was happy in her dreams, at any rate, she thought with a sense of relief.

And then suddenly Christine woke with a start. She sat up in bed, throwing out her arms.

"Jimmy----" But it was a cry of terror, not of joy.

"Jimmy--Jimmy--don't hurt me. . . . oh!"

She was sobbing now--wild, pitiful sobs.

Gladys put her arms round her; she held her tightly.

"It's all right, dear. I'm here--n.o.body shall hurt you." She stroked her hair and soothed and kissed her; she held her fast till the sobbing ceased. Then:

"I've been dreaming," said Christine tremblingly. "I thought"--she shivered a little--"I thought--thought someone was going to hurt me."

"n.o.body can hurt you while I am here; dreams are nothing--n.o.body believes in dreams."

Christine did not answer. She had never told Gladys of that one moment when Jimmy had tried to strike her--when beside himself with pa.s.sionate rage and misery he had lifted his hand to strike her.

She fell asleep again, holding her friend's hand.

CHAPTER XIX

A CHANCE MEETING

Two days pa.s.sed uneventfully away, but Kettering did not come to Upton House. Christine's first faint resentment and amazement had turned to anger--an anger which she kept hidden, or so she fondly believed.

She hardly went out. She spent hours curled up on the big sofa by the window reading, or pretending to read. Gladys wondered how much she really read of the books which she took one by one from the crowded library.

The third morning Christine answered Sangster's letter. She wrote very stiltedly; she said she was sorry to hear that Jimmy was not well, but no doubt he was all right again by this time. She said she was enjoying herself in a quiet way, and very much preferred the country to London.

"I have so many friends here, you see," she added, with a faint hope that perhaps Sangster would show the letter to Jimmy, and that he would gather from it that she did not miss him in the very least.

And Sangster did show it to Jimmy; to a rather weak-looking Jimmy, propped up in an armchair, slowly recovering from the severe chill which had made him quite ill for the time being.

A Jimmy who spoke very little, and asked no questions at all, and who took the letter apathetically enough, and laid it by as soon as he had read it.

"You wrote to her, then," he said indifferently.

"Yes."

"You might have saved yourself the trouble; I knew she would not come.

If you had asked me I could have told you. Of course, you suggested that she _should_ come."

"Yes."

Jimmy's eyes smiled faintly.

"Interfering old a.s.s," he said affectionately.

Sangster coloured. He was very unhappy about Jimmy; he had always known that he was not particularly strong, and, as a matter of fact, during the past few days Jimmy had grown most surprisingly thin and weak, though he still insisted that there was nothing the matter with him--nothing at all.

There was a little silence.

"I suppose that's meant for a dig at me," said Jimmy presently. "That bit about having so many friends. . . . She means Kettering, I suppose."

"I don't see why she should," said Sangster awkwardly.

Jimmy laughed rather grimly.