CHAPTER XIII
SHE AND I
The girl was changed. I perceived it as soon as I was in Mrs. Peddar's room. She stood behind the table, and, as I entered, turned her face away. Her attitude suggested doubt, hesitation, even shame. It was so different to the spontaneous burst of friendship which, hitherto, when she saw me, had brought her to my side.
Miss Adair was seated with her hands lying open on her knee; in her bearing there was also dubiety, and in Mrs. Peddar's as, leaning against her sideboard, she fidgeted with the fringe of her black apron. The air was so charged with the spirit of uncertainty that, as soon as I entered, it affected me. We each of us seemed to be unwilling to meet the other's glances. It was with an effort I broke the uncomfortable silence.
"I don't think, Miss Moore, that I should lose any time in going home with Miss Adair."
"Going home? Where is my home? Yes, I know I ought to know, and I do know more than I did, but—I can't just find it."
"Never mind about that, Miss Adair will see you're all right. Now put your hat on, and off you go. I'm afraid that I must hurry you."
I was thinking of Inspector Symonds down below, and how extremely possible it was that he might change his mind. She made no movement, but continued looking down on to the floor, her brow all creased in lines of pain.
"Do you think—I—killed that man?"
"I am sure that you did not."
She glanced up at me, her brow smoothed out, light in her eyes.
"You are sure? Oh? What makes you sure?"
"My own common sense. I have seen your brother, and I have heard from him what was the errand which took you to Edwin Lawrence. I can understand how your mind was strained, and what a very little more was needed to make that strain too much. But that in what took place you did nothing of which you have cause to be ashamed, I am convinced."
"But she thinks I did it, and so does she; and—I'm not sure."
She pointed first to Miss Adair and then to Mrs. Peddar.
"You're dreaming. Miss Adair knows you too well to suppose the incredible."
"But she does think I did it. Don't you?"
In reply Miss Adair put her elbows on the table and her face on her hands, and burst into tears.
"Bessie!" she cried.
I was dumfounded.
"You see. And she thinks so too. And that man, he thinks so; he wanted to lock me up. Will he—lock me up?"
She asked the question with a little gasp, so expressive of loneliness and terror, that it cut me to the heart I tried to speak with a confidence I did not feel.
"The police are famous for their blunders. In cases such as this, if they had their way, they'd lock up every one they could lay their hands on. There's one question I want to ask you before you go—was there no one else present in that room last night except you and Edwin Lawrence?"
"Yes—you were there."
"I!"
She said it with a directness which struck me as with a crowbar.
"Yes, you were there. I thought, when I saw you sitting up in bed, in the moonlight, that I had seen your face before, and I've been thinking so all the time; and now it's all come back to me—you were there. Don't you remember that you came into the room?"
She spoke with a touch of sudden excitement. Mrs. Peddar resented her words with unusual heat.
"You wicked girl! To say such a thing, after all that he has done for you! You'll be saying next that I was there."
I endeavoured to appease my enthusiastic partisan.
"Gently, Mrs. Peddar. I am not at all sure that what Miss Moore says is not correct. I, too, suffered last night from dreams. I dreamed that I went to Edwin Lawrence's rooms, and saw him murdered; whether I saw with the actual or the spiritual eye, I cannot tell; but, in any case, all that I did see was seen as in a glass darkly."
"Did you see me?"
"I cannot be certain. I saw some one who I now believe to have been you."
"Did you see It?"
"It?"
"The—the creature—the dreadful thing!"
"My vision was blurred; I saw nothing plain, it had all the indistinctness of a nightmare, but—I was oppressed by the consciousness of some hideous presence in the room. What was—the thing?"
"I don't know; I can't think. I'm afraid to try! It did it all."
"Wasn't it—a wild beast? It made a noise like one, or—was it my imagination?"
"The dreadful noise! I've heard it ever since. I hear it all the time—I hear it now. Can't you—hear it now?"
She looked about her with frightened eyes.
"That certainly is your imagination; there's not a sound. But was there no one else there in the room besides you, and Edwin Lawrence, and—I?"
"There was the other man."
"Was that other man his brother?"
"I don't just know; I can't quite think. But, if I saw him again, I should know him, I feel sure I should, as I've known you."
"Did they quarrel, the two men?"
She shook her head.
"It will all come back to me, perhaps, piece by piece; but not yet, not yet But you were there, and you saw I did not kill him?"
"What I saw I cannot tell; as with you it was all a blur. But that you did not kill him I am as sure as that the sky is above."
"I am so glad. You have made me so happy."
"It needs but a little thing to make your happiness."
"What is your name?"
"You have heard it more than once. My name is Ferguson—John Ferguson."
"John!" Returning to her former self, she said it with the simplicity of a little child. She nestled close up to me, as if for comfort. My pulses throbbed. "Why is it that I feel safe when I am near you, and that the nearer I am to you the safer I feel?"
"God grant that you may always feel safe when you are near to me."
My voice was husky.
"I believe that I always shall feel safe when you are near; I believe I always shall."
She looked up at me with eyes in which there was something which seemed to burn into my soul. It was with difficulty I kept myself from putting my arm about her. When I spoke, it was awkwardly enough, and with a lumbering choice of ungainly words.
"The tangle is greater than I thought. It seems to be drawing us together. God moves in a mysterious way, and it maybe His purpose that, under this blood-red shadow, our lives shall draw closer to each other. For my part, I am content." I waited for her to speak; she was still; but she rested one hand upon my arm, and I trembled. "Don't let yourself be troubled by fantastic fears. Rest assured that your heart is stainless as are your hands. I know. Look up, the light is coming! Your innocence will be made plain to all the world, and to yourself. For it seems that of yourself you're chief doubter."
"I did doubt; I'm easier now. I don't doubt at all when you are near. I wonder why?"
"I wonder, too. But, come, there are a dozen things which I must do. You must be bundled off. Mrs. Peddar, where is this young lady's hat?"
Mrs. Peddar passed into an inner room, presently returning with a hat. While its owner was putting it on. Miss Adair came up to me. I had been aware that the two women had been watching us with wide-open eyes and gaping mouths; now one of them gave partial expression to her feelings.
"What on earth is there between you two? Have you known each other all your lives, or did you meet for the first time last night?"
"That is a question for the metaphysicians. I seem to have known her all my life."
"And has she known you all hers? Is that what I'm to think?"
"There is one thing you are not to think—you are not to think that she had any hand in what was done."
"But it's all so awful! It's all come upon me in an instant: it's taken me unawares. What am I to think after what she said, and did, in that room?"
"You are to be sure that she is as innocent as a child."
"But what am I to think? It seems now that you both were there. I have no doubt whatever that the man quite deserved being killed; if she didn't kill him, then did you?"
"God forbid!"
Miss Moore had her hat on. She made a discovery.
"I had a cloak. I feel sure I had a cloak. Where's it gone?"
"Never mind about your cloak; it's warm enough to-day, you'll be able to do quite well without it."
I caught Miss Adair's glance; plainly she remembered what I had said about the condition of that garment; there was renewed suspicion in her eye. I turned to Mrs. Peddar.
"We don't want to go through the main entrance; isn't there another way?"
"There is the service lift, and there are the service stairs."
"The very thing; show us where they are."
She showed us where they were; and we three went down the servants' staircase, through a back door, into a side street, no one saying us nay. I saw the two girls into a cab. As they were starting Miss Moore leaned her head out. She looked at me with eyes which were, to me, like magnets. Her lips formed a single word:
"John!"
As the hansom drove off, and, turning the corner, passed from sight, I felt as if something had gone out of my life.