Sir Hilton's Sin Part 21

"Yes, m'lady. Any answer?"

As head of the establishment of the Denes, bought and paid for with the money which formed her dowry, she took the message as a matter of course, and opened it without glancing at the direction, dropped the envelope on to the stone steps, and the pleasant breeze whisked it in among the shrubs.

She had turned pale on receiving the telegram. As she read it she turned pink on finding it was a private communication not intended for her eyes, and then scarlet with indignation and wrath.

"Why, this is dated yesterday," she cried angrily.

"Yes, m'lady. We had such a lot o' racing messages, my Gee couldn't get 'em all through. But we've got a special gal on, and it'll be all right now."

"No answer!" said Lady Lisle, sharply, and she hurried into the hall, and from thence into the breakfast-room, to stand with temples throbbing, reading the message again--

"All found out at last. Do pray tell her ladys.h.i.+p. She won't be very hard upon us if you confess everything. Not sorry, after all, for it must have been known soon. Do, do come over, and face it out with me.

Pray, pray come.--La Sylphide."

"Oh-h-h-h!" moaned the poor woman, in a quivering sob; and she stood rigid for a few minutes, crus.h.i.+ng the message in her hand, suffering agonies from the awakening for the first time in her life of the pa.s.sion known as jealousy. It filled her, so to speak, and overmastered everything. There could be no other possibility--no doubt--the demon had her in its grasp, and everything now had some bearing upon the message. All pa.s.sages in her life during the past few months tended towards proving that she had been basely, cruelly deceived.

Hilton had gradually been growing colder and more indifferent; he had grown moody and thoughtful. It had struck her that he was careless about the Parliamentary business, and had not seemed to be grateful when, in a mingled spirit of generosity and vanity, she, the wife to whom he had sworn fidelity, had placed four thousand pounds to his credit in the bank.

Here was the reason.

"Stop!" she cried mentally. "I will not be rash."

She looked at the telegram again, read it, and then noted that the postmark was Tilborough; and she turned it over to examine the envelope, which she had dropped--she did not recall in her half-crazy state when or where.

But it was enough--the boy had given it to her, and it could be for no one else.

"Oh, Hilton, Hilton!" she groaned. "Has it come to this? A liaison with some low-born, base creature. Kept with my money. This is why you have always been so short; this is why you have always been degrading yourself by asking for more. 'All found out at last. Do pray tell her ladys.h.i.+p. She won't be very hard upon us!' Indeed!" she said, half-aloud, and through her hard-set teeth. "Of course not. Oh-h-h! I could have overlooked a relapse into his old gambling vice, but this-- this baseness! The villain--the villain!"

"Who is it?" she muttered, reading again, "La Sylphide. Some French creature, dwelling in that nest of infamy, Tilborough. Why! Oh, great heavens! That wretched racing woman--that widow! She must have been coming here to see him this morning when we pa.s.sed. Oh, I see it all now. The telegram--dated yesterday--he did not join her according to her request, and she had the daring effrontery to come after him here.

That is it. 'All found out at last!' What could be all found out at last? Oh--oh--oh!"

Lady Lisle covered her face with her hands, the coloured paper crackling softly as it touched her temples, making her start as if it had stung her burning skin, and dash it down upon the carpet and stamp upon it in disgust.

But it was a proof of her husband's infidelity, she thought, and she stooped and picked it up, wis.h.i.+ng her fingers were the tongs, as she smoothed it out, doubled it, and held it ready for the interview about to take place.

"And so I am not to be very hard I am to condone everything. Well," she added, with a bitter laugh which seemed to tear itself from her throbbing breast, "we shall see."

She paused again, with her poor brain seeming to seethe with wildly jealous thoughts, every one garnished with cruel suspicions, and seeming to tell more and more against the culprit, till everything was in a whirl. But all the time she was suffering from the belief that she was seeing more and more clearly as the cruel moments glided on.

"Yes, I see it all now," she cried pa.s.sionately; "poor, weak, deluded, loving fool that I have been! Vile, treacherous wretch! Horrible creature! Yes, of course. A woman who is said to have refused offer after offer since her poor husband's death. La Sylphide--of course, as if I had not heard that she bought a portion of Hilton's stud when his horses were sold, and one was this Sylphide, whose name she dares to a.s.sume in her clandestine communications to him. Oh, how kind to me Fate has been! To think of it! I might have been a trusting victim for years--hoodwinked--blinded to their infamy. Ah! he shall find out what the weak, loving, confiding woman whom he has deceived can be."

There was a very peculiar smile upon Lady Lisle's handsome face as she crossed to the fireplace, to be met by Khan, the Persian cat, who descended from his ottoman, stretched himself, and made ready to give himself a comforting electric rub against his mistress's silk dress, but to his astonishment was--not kicked, but thrust violently aside by a boot, to stand staring, while her ladys.h.i.+p continued her march.

She did not rush, but went to the bell deliberately.

"Yes, I will be firm and calm," she said, half-aloud, and the smile grew more strained and peculiar. It was such a look as Medea of old might have worn when a certain trouble of cla.s.sic fame had arisen with a gentleman named Jason; but she dragged at the bell-handle in a way which brought Jane in a hurry to the room.

"I will not seek him in his study," muttered the poor woman, tragically.

"I will have him fetched to me here."

"Your ladys.h.i.+p rang?" said Jane, looking at her mistress wonderingly.

"Yes. Go and--no, stop. Where is Master Sydney?"

"I think he has gone fis.h.i.+ng, my lady. I saw him with his rod and basket. Oh, yes, my lady, I remember, he asked me to cut him some sandwiches."

Jane's tongue wanted to say a few words about the flask and sherry, but she had a sort of sneaking liking for the saucy young rascal, and she suppressed that.

"To be sure, I remember," said Lady Lisle, quite cold and calm now--upon the surface. "Go and ask Sir Hilton to join me here."

"Sir Hilton, my lady?"

"Yes. Did I not speak plainly?" said her ladys.h.i.+p, cuttingly.

"Yes, my lady, but I thought you had forgotten again. Sir Hilton's gone out."

"Gone out?"

This came like a volcanic burst through the calm envelope.

"Yes, my lady."

The eruption was checked, and the calm aspect closed up, as the bright envelope of the sun eliminates a sun-spot at times.

"Has he--er--gone fis.h.i.+ng with Master Sydney?"

"No, my lady; I didn't see, for I was doing your room. But he ordered the dogcart, Mark said, and they've gone together."

"Where did Mark say they were going?"

Lady Lisle was losing her calmness at this check to her plans.

Jane was silent.

"Why do you not speak, girl?" came in sternly tragic tones.

"Please, my lady, I'd rather not."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to get a fellow-servant into trouble."

"Speak out at once, girl. No fellow-servant of yours will meet with injustice while I am mistress of the Denes."

"Of course not, my lady."

"Tell me then, at once, what more Sir Hilton's groom and valet said."

"Well, my lady, if I must I must; but it wasn't Mark's fault."