in the solitude of his own room, Mr. Rayburn felt that the one prudent course to take would be to persuade Mrs. Zant to leave St. Sallins. He tried to prepare her for this strong proceeding, when she came the next day to take Lucy out for a walk.
“If you still regret having forced yourself to accept your brother-in-law’s invitation,” was all he ventured to say, “don’t forget that you are perfect mistress of your own actions. You have only to come to me at the hotel, and I will take you back to London by the next train.”
She positively refused to entertain the idea.
“I should be a thankless creature, indeed,” she said, “if I accepted your proposal. Do you think I am ungrateful enough to involve you in a personal quarrel with John Zant? No! If I find myself forced to leave the house, I will go away alone.”
There was no moving her from this resolution. When she and Lucy had gone out together, Mr. Rayburn remained at the hotel, with a mind ill at ease. A man of readier mental resources might have felt at a loss how to act for the best, in the emergency that now confronted him. While he was still as far as ever from arriving at a decision, some person knocked at the door.
Had Mrs. Zant returned? He looked up as the door was opened, and saw to his astonishment—Mr. John Zant’s housekeeper.
“Don’t let me alarm you, sir,” the woman said. “Mrs. Zant has been taken a little faint, at the door of our house. My master is attending to her.”
“Where is the child?” Mr. Rayburn asked.
“I was bringing her back to you, sir, when we met a lady and her little girl at the door of the hotel. They were on their way to the beach—and Miss Lucy begged hard to be allowed to go with them. The lady said the two children were playfellows, and she was sure you would not object.”
“The lady is quite right. Mrs. Zant’s illness is not serious, I hope?”
“I think not, sir. But I should like to say something in her interests. May I? Thank you.” She advanced a step nearer to him, and spoke her next words in a whisper. “Take Mrs. Zant away from this place, and lose no time in doing it.”
Mr. Rayburn was on his guard. He merely asked: “Why?”
The housekeeper answered in a curiously indirect manner—partly in jest, as it seemed, and partly in earnest.
“When a man has lost his wife,” she said, “there’s some difference of opinion in Parliament, as I hear, whether he does right or wrong, if he marries his wife’s sister. Wait a bit! I’m coming to the point. My master is one who has a long head on his shoulders; he sees consequences which escape the notice of people like me. In his way of thinking, if one man may marry his wife’s sister, and no harm done, where’s the objection if another man pays a compliment to the family, and marries his brother’s widow? My master, if you please, is that other man. Take the widow away before she marries him.”
This was beyond endurance.
“You insult Mrs. Zant,” Mr. Rayburn answered, “if you suppose that such a thing is possible!”
“Oh! I insult her, do I? Listen to me. One of three things will happen. She will be entrapped into consenting to it—or frightened into consenting to it—or drugged into consenting to it—”
Mr. Rayburn was too indignant to let her go on.
“You are talking nonsense,” he said. “There can be no marriage; the law forbids it.”
“Are you one of the people who see no further than their noses?” she asked insolently. “Won’t the law take his money? Is he obliged to mention that he is related to her by marriage, when he buys the license?” She paused; her humor changed; she stamped furiously on the floor. The true motive that animated her showed itself in her next words, and warned Mr. Rayburn to grant a more favorable hearing than he had accorded to her yet. “If you won’t stop it,” she burst out, “I will! If he marries anybody, he is bound to marry ME. Will you take her away? I ask you, for the last time—will you take her away?”
The tone in which she made that final appeal to him had its effect.
“I will go back with you to John Zant’s house,” he said, “and judge for myself.”
She laid her hand on his arm:
“I must go first—or you may not be let in. Follow me in five minutes; and don’t knock at the street door.”
On the point of leaving him, she abruptly returned.
“We have forgotten something,” she said. “Suppose my master refuses to see you. His temper might get the better of him; he might make it so unpleasant for you that you would be obliged to go.”
“My temper might get the better of me,” Mr. Rayburn replied; “and—if I thought it was in Mrs. Zant’s interests—I might refuse to leave the house unless she accompanied me.”
“That will never do, sir.”
“Why not?”
“Because I should be the person to suffer.”
“In what way?”
“In this way. If you picked a quarrel with my master, I should be blamed for it because I showed you upstairs. Besides, think of the lady. You might frighten her out of her senses, if it came to a struggle between you two men.”
The language was exaggerated; but there was a force in this last objection which Mr. Rayburn was obliged to acknowledge.
“And, after all,” the housekeeper continued, “he has more right over her than you have. He is related to her, and you are only her friend.”
Mr. Rayburn declined to let himself be influenced by this consideration, “Mr. John Zant is only related to her by marriage,” he said. “If she prefers trusting in me—come what may of it, I will be worthy of her confidence.”
The housekeeper shook her head.
“That only means another quarrel,” she answered. “The wise way, with a man like my master, is the peaceable way. We must manage to deceive him.”
“I don’t like deceit.”
“In that case, sir, I’ll wish you good-by. We will leave Mrs. Zant to do the best she can for herself.”
Mr. Rayburn was unreasonable. He positively refused to adopt this alternative.
“Will you hear what I have got to say?” the housekeeper asked.
“There can be no harm in that,” he admitted. “Go on.”
She took him at his word.
“When you called at our house,” she began, “did you notice the doors in the passage, on the first floor? Very well. One of them is the door of the drawing-room, and the other is the door of the library. Do you remember the drawing-room, sir?”
“I thought it a large well-lighted room,” Mr. Rayburn answered. “And I noticed a doorway in the wall, with a handsome curtain hanging over it.”
“That’s enough for our purpose,” the housekeeper resumed. “On the other side of the curtain, if you had looked in, you would have found the library. Suppose my master is as polite as usual, and begs to be excused for not receiving you, because it is an inconvenient time. And suppose you are polite on your side and take yourself off by the drawing-room door. You will find me waiting downstairs, on the first landing. Do you see it now?”
“I can’t say I do.”
“You surprise me, sir. What is to prevent us from getting back softly into the library, by the door in the passage? And why shouldn’t we use that second way into the library as a means of discovering what may be going on in the drawing-room? Safe behind the curtain, you will see him if he behaves uncivilly