Chapter I

Many times Fanny tried to speak of that night and of the night that followed before Liddiard went away, but there was a strange serenity in Mary's face in those days which suppressed all Fanny's emotions of sympathy, confidence and vital curiosity.

There were times when she hoped Mary might speak herself, if not of what actually had happened, at least in some measure of Liddiard and herself. Ever since their youth, being much of an age together, sharing the same room, they had had few secrets from each other. If she were to ask no more than Fanny's opinion of Liddiard, it would have afforded loophole for confidence. One discussion would have led to another. If necessary, Fanny would even have revived in her memory all that she had told Mary about her own little tragedy on those cliffs. To have gained that confidence every sense in her needed so much, she would have suffered the crudest flagellation of memory; the more cruel it was, the more exquisite would have been her pain.

But never had Mary been more aloof. Never had she been more distant and reserved. To Hannah perhaps, if to any, she showed an even closer affection, sometimes helping her with the teaching of her children and every day spending an hour and even more in their prattling company.

For long walks she went alone. Frequently at night, when she had retired to her room and Fanny on some feminine pretext came to her door, she found it locked.

"What is it?" asked Mary from within.

"Just Fanny."

"What do you want?"

"Oh--nothing! I wondered if you'd finished with that book." Such as this might be her excuse.

"Yes, I have. I left it downstairs in the dining-room."

"Well--good-night, Mary."

"Good-night, Fanny."

No more than this. That locked door seemed symbolical of Mary in those days. So had she barred all entrance to her soul from them and like the Holy of Holies behind the locked gates of the Temple was inapproachable to their unsanctified feet.

And all this seeming was no less than the actual truth. To Mary her body had indeed become the sanctuary, the very chalice of the Host of sacred things. She knew she was going to have a child. Such knowledge was pure folly and had no foundation upon fact. It lay only in her imagination.

Yet lying awake at night and waking early in the mornings with the first light the sun cast into her room, she had sensations, inventions only of the fancy, that were unmistakable to her.

Already she was conscious of the dual life of her being. Such had happened to her as indeed had separated her in difference from them all in that house.

Her thoughts of Liddiard were glowing thoughts. Sometimes as she lay, half sleeping in her bed, she felt him there beside her. But in all her fully conscious moments, she had no need of his return.

Their meetings upon the cliffs those two nights before he had gone from Bridnorth, had left her calm rather than excited. Almost she would have resented his actual presence in her life just then. In the distance which separated them, she felt the warm sense of that part of her being he had become; but his absence was not fretting her with the need of his embraces. No furnace of sexual inclination had there been set alight in her. In this respect he had not differenced her. She was the same Mary Throgmorton of outwardly passionless stone, only the hidden flame he had set light within her was that, unquenchable, which the stress of circumstance in time would burn with such a fervid purpose as none of them could stay.

Behind that locked door of her bedroom the night after his departure, she sat and wrote to him. A short letter it was, free of restraint, as though across some narrow space dividing them, she had just called out of her heart to him and laughed.

"I love you," she wrote. "Don't let it interfere with life. You have given some greater thing than you could ever dream of, and need not think of breaking hearts or things that do not happen in a healthy world. I am not thinking of the future. For just these few moments, the present is wonderful enough. Just because I belong to you, I sign myself--YOUR MARY."

Herself, with jealous hands, that morning she posted it and when she came back to the house a letter from him was awaiting her.

Both Jane and Fanny watched her as, with an amazing calmness, she picked it up and put it in her lap.

Both, knowing what they knew, were swift to ask themselves again, was this their Mary who had grown so confident with love.

A smile of expectation twitched about Jane's lips as Hannah, simple as a child, inquired who it was had written.

This would confuse her, Jane thought, and almost with the eagerness of spite, she waited for the flaming cheeks, for all the discomfort of her lip and eye.

Mary looked up quietly from her plate. Almost she felt sorry for them then that they were ignorant of all she knew. What was there to hide in telling them that? She realized Jane knew. She felt her waiting for those signs of the distressing confusion of a guilty heart. She had no guilt in her heart. She was not ashamed. They had no power to shame her.

"It's from Mr. Liddiard," she replied openly.

"Mr. Liddiard!" repeated Hannah. "What's he writing to you about?"

"I shall know when I read the letter," replied Mary quietly.

"I wonder how you can manage to wait till then," said Jane.

"I don't suppose it's very important," said Hannah, and Jane laughed, but Fanny could bear it no longer. None of them knew what she knew. She left the room.