Part 20 (1/2)

Lady Ingleby sat, with clasped hands, considering. After all, what did it matter? What did anything matter, compared to the trouble with Jim?

She looked up at the portrait; but Michael's pictured face, intent on little Peter, gave her no sign.

If these boys wished to tell her, and get it off their minds, why should she not know? It would put a stop, once for all, to Ronnie's tragic love-making.

”Yes, Billy,” she said. ”You may as well tell me.”

The room was very still. A rosebud tapped twice against the window-pane.

It might have been a warning finger. Neither noticed it. It tapped a third time.

Billy cleared his throat, and swallowed, quickly.

Then he spoke.

”The man who made the blunder,” he said, ”and fired the mine too soon; the man who killed Lord Ingleby, by mistake, was the chap you call 'Jim Airth.'”

CHAPTER XIX

JIM AIRTH DECIDES

Lady Ingleby awaited Jim Airth's arrival, in her sitting-room.

As the hour drew near, she rang the bell.

”Groatley,” she said, when the butler appeared, ”the Earl of Airth, who was here yesterday, will call again, this afternoon. When his lords.h.i.+p comes, you can show him in here. I shall not be at home to any one else.

You need not bring tea until I ring for it.”

Then she sat down, quietly waiting.

She had resumed the mourning, temporarily laid aside. The black gown, hanging about her in soft trailing folds, added to the graceful height of her slight figure. The white tokens of widowhood at neck and wrists gave to her unusual beauty a pathetic suggestion of wistful loneliness. Her face was very pale; a purple tint beneath the tired eyes betokened tears and sleeplessness. But the calm steadfast look in those sweet eyes revealed a mind free of all doubt; a heart, completely at rest.

She leaned back among the sofa cus.h.i.+ons, her hands folded in her lap, and waited.

Bees hummed in and out of the open windows. The scent of freesias filled the room, delicate, piercingly sweet, yet not oppressive. To one man forever afterwards the scent of freesias recalled that afternoon; the exquisite sweetness of that lovely face; the trailing softness of her widow's gown.

Steps in the hall.

The door opened. Groatley's voice, pompously sonorous, broke into the waiting silence.

”The Earl of Airth, m'lady”; and Jim Airth walked in.

As the door closed behind him, Myra rose.

They stood, silently confronting one another beneath Lord Ingleby's picture.

It almost seemed as though the thoughtful scholarly face must turn from its absorbed contemplation of the little dog, to look down for a moment upon them. They presented a psychological problem--these brave hearts in torment--which would surely have proved interesting to the calm student of metaphysics.