The Spinster | Page 5

Inley, perhaps you'd be so good as just to lif t him up and put him inside the door for me. I always have such a job to get him to come in of a night. He likes hunting in the woods. Doesn't he, the naughty Johnny?'
"'Now's my chance to get rid of her!' I thought.
"I bent down, picked the cat up, and went along the path towards the cottage, Miss Bassett following close behind me. The cat was an immense beast, awfully heavy, and just as I turned out of the yew path to go up to the cottage door he began struggling to get away, and scratching. I held on to him, but it wasn't easy, and I got my hand torn before I dropped him down inside the little hall. Away he ran, towards the kitchen, I suppose. Miss Bassett was very grateful, but I cut her gratitude short.
"'Very glad to have been able to help you,' I said. 'Good-night.'
"'Good-night, Lord Inley,' she said.
"I thought her voice sounded a little bit odd when she said that, and I just glanced at her funny old face, lit up by the lantern she was holding in one mittened hand. She didn't look at me this time as she had in the garden. Then I went out, and she immediately shut the door.
"'Thank God!' I thought, and I hurried to the wicket. I didn't dare stay in the garden now. Seeing her had made me realise my blackguardism in coming in at all, considering my reason. I resolved to hide in the field at the corner where the road turns off to Charfield. As I opened the wicket, instinctively I put my hand into my pocket for my revolver."
He bent down, looking full into my eyes.
"It wasn't there."
"Miss Bassett!" I exclaimed.
"In a moment I realised that Miss Bassett must have grasped the situation; that her asking me to carry in her cat was a ruse, and that while the beast was struggling between my hands she must have stolen the revolver from behind. I say I knew that, and yet even then, when I thought of her look, her manner, the sort of nervous old thing she was, I couldn't believe what I knew. Then I remembered her voice when she said 'Good-night' to me in the passage, her eyes looking down instead of at me, and that she was only holding the lantern in one hand, whereas in the garden she was using two. She must have had the revolver in her other hand concealed in the folds of her dress. I ran back to the cottage door, and knocked--hard. Not that I thought she'd open. I knew she wouldn't, but she did directly. I could hardly speak. I was afraid of myself just then. At last I said:
"'Miss Bassett, you know what I want.'
"'You can't have it,' she said, looking straight at me.
"I kept quiet for a second, then I said:
"'Miss Bassett, I don't think you know that you're running into danger.' For I felt that there was danger for her then if she went against me. She knew it, too, perhaps better than I did. I saw her poor old hands, all blue veins, beginning to tremble.
"'You can't have it, Lord Inley,' she repeated.
"There wasn't the ghost of a quiver in her voice.
"'I must, I will!' I said, and I made a movement towards her--a violent movement I know it was.
"But the old thing stood her ground. Oh, she was a gallant old woman.
"'Do what you like to me,' she said. 'I'm old. What does it matter? She's young.'
"Then I knew she understood.
"'You've seen them together!' I said. 'Since I went!'
"She wouldn't say. Not a word. I was mad. I forgot decency, everything. I took her. I searched her for the revolver. I searched her roughly--God forgive me. She trembled horribly, but never said a word. It wasn't on her. She must have hidden it somewhere in that moment when she was alone in the cottage. That was another ruse to keep me searching in there while-- But I saw it almost directly. I broke away, and rushed out and down the road. Something seemed to tell me they had passed. I got into the lane that leads to Charfield. The fly was gone. Then, all of a sudden, I felt perfectly calm. I turned, and went up to the Abbey gates. I knocked them up at the lodge. The keeper came out. When he saw me he said:
"'You, my lord! However did you know?'
"'Go on!' I said. 'Know what?'
"'About Master Hugo?'
"I didn't say one way or the other.
"'The doctor says it's a bitter bad quinsy, but there's just a chance. Her ladyship's nearly mad. It only came on a few hours ago quite sudden.'
"I went up