Chapter IV

He started up at the sound of a snapping twig, aware that he had been nodding with fatigue and sleep. The next instant a hand was laid on his shoulder.

"Come," she murmured, "it's safe now."

"Is it dark?" he asked with surprise.

"Quite--a black night."

Walking was difficult at first, for he was stiff and numb with inaction and cold, and as if from the long exposure the wound in his head began to ache and throb worse than ever. But taking his arm she guided him through the undergrowth, and out on to the road.

Close as she was to him he could hear her draw a sharp breath now and then, though whether from some fancied alarm or painful memory he could not say.

After a time they passed through a heavy gate across the road.

"Now," she breathed, "quick as we can go; we are on the open common beside the first house."

For a village, that Minnis was a queer place. Once inside the gate his feet were on a road as smooth and even as is the drive to some great house. And when they left the road for the turf, which they did very soon, he found the turf as springy and level as any lawn. But there was gorse on it, and bracken too, in patches, for once catching sight of some object looming up a short way ahead she made him lie down in a clump of bracken while she herself went forward to reconnoitre.

Kinloch could tell when they were nearing the house from the way in which her hand tightened on his arm, and her breathing quickened. From her movements, so close was she to him, he knew her to be glancing this way and that, peering into the darkness. All around them the night was as still as the grave, and on that turf feet made no sound. What with all this dread of being seen, and the convulsive grip on his arm, an uneasy feeling came to him, a vague sense of disquiet as to what he might encounter in that house. But before this feeling had time to grow very strong he found himself at the door.

The sharp, deep sigh of relief too, with which she shut and bolted that door, gave him the measure of her previous anxiety. He knew terror had gripped her lest they should be seen. She must have sunk down into some chair as soon as they stumbled into the room. Kinloch, left to himself, after standing at a loss for a little, groped about to discover another chair. There seemed to be very few in the room, but coming on one he drew it towards the glow of warmth that told him where a good fire was burning. For the slow, cautious crawl they had made from his hiding-place among the trees had done little to restore his circulation, cold and numb as he was with so many hours of inaction and exposure.

But the first thought she showed afterwards was one to take note of. For her first act as soon as she recovered breath was to attend to his damaged head. She undid the bandages, and having deftly snipped the hair from around the wound, and washed it carefully, she readjusted the bandages in a way that revealed experience. From this he concluded that his mystery woman had probably done nursing at a war hospital. Then from her movements he knew she had set about preparing a meal.

After a little, as he sat holding out both hands to the blaze, she came over beside him to kneel before the fire.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

"Like a piece of frozen mutton."

By the simile he meant to convey no more than that he felt very cold indeed; but she appeared to imagine he had laid emphasis on the last word.

"You cannot blame yourself for what has happened," she said. He noticed now that her voice seemed almost youthful, clear in tone, yet low in pitch. But blame himself! He was far from doing that! He wished the man who knocked him out had been there. He'd have done more than blame _him_. He had a score to settle with him--one day sooner or later. But he kept quiet about that intention then. He said:

"Well, as to that, I've been in the control of others in this affair all along--at their disposal, I mean, driven like a sheep--an ignoble part."

She began to stir up the fire. From the abstracted, mechanical way in which she used the poker, he gathered she was deep in thought. In the end she left him without saying more.

Kinloch listened hard to see if he could detect the presence of any one else in that house. As the numbness melted out of him before the log fire, and his faculties began to thaw, the first human quality that seemed to come back was a quickly growing curiosity about that woman. That she was deeply involved in the affair was plain enough; that she had carried him off to save the other man he felt certain. Yet it was not upon such facts that his thoughts now mainly turned, not even on what the graver issues of the tragedy might be, but merely on who she was, and what she was like. And here, once for all, certain facts set forth afterwards by Dr. Dunn, need to be understood by all who possess their eyesight. They are these: the mind of a blind person tends to be more active and alert than that of a sighted person. He lives in his mind more exclusively, for he is thrown in upon himself in a variety of ways, and is almost certain to make up for lost physical activity by an increased mental life. In consequence, and as if in compensation for the lost sight, certain other senses become more acute--touch and hearing immensely more, and his memory and imagination are more developed. The point in asking that these facts should be remembered lies in this: many people regard a blind man as a more or less helpless creature. He is so only in regard to one of his five senses; in the other four he is not unlikely to be more efficient than the person who pities him.

Thus, for the answers to the questions as to who this woman was and what she was like, it might be thought that Kinloch was helpless except in so far as she chose to enlighten him. But that was not his view; and he made up his mind, sitting there that night, to get an answer to them, and to others. For he did not feel under any weight of obligation to her. It was clear enough that, though she had carried him away from what might have proved more than an awkward situation, she had done so only because his story of what had happened might, if it were believed, make things much more awkward for the other man, and perhaps herself also.

The woman too, he thought, must have begun to do a lot of thinking just then. Whether it was that the house in Minnis had associations connected with happier days, or whether she had little chance and less liking for thought up to the time they reached the shelter of the house, Kinloch didn't know; but she had precious little to say to him that night. Still, she must have had her eyes on him, for after the meal, when he returned to the fire, she at once perceived the drowsiness that stole over him, and packed him off to his room. It would be time enough, she said, to talk plans over in the morning.

The next morning, however, Kinloch was made aware that even in that lonely house their situation was not without its dangers. Very early he was awakened by a peremptory tapping at his door, followed by a summons to breakfast. The decision in the knocking caught his attention: it was that of one who had taken command. He was unwilling to stir at once, wishing to luxuriate awhile in such a smooth, warm bed as he had not lain in for ages. And when he sat up and felt his stubby chin it did not add alacrity to his movements. But he scrambled out, feeling almost glad he could not himself see what he looked like.

Over breakfast the delicacy of the situation was made known to him. The old woman, Mrs. Spedding, was coming to do the housework, and he would have to be concealed for the two hours she would be moving about the house. But this seemed easy. He had only to stay in his room, a room which, since it was supposed to be unoccupied, the old dame would have no occasion to enter. As it chanced, they were almost caught straight away; for he had not finished eating before the old woman was at the door. In her eagerness to please, she had come before the time appointed. Kinloch was breathlessly smuggled into a sort of cloak-room cupboard in a corner of the little lounge hall in which they were breakfasting. But she got the door shut just as the old woman opened the other. He heard all that passed.

"Mornin', ma'am. Thought I'd best be a bit early this first morning in case anything 'ad 'appened."

"That was good of you, Mrs. Spedding. Did you think I'd burn the bacon or spill the milk?"

Mrs. Spedding chuckled.

"No, miss, not 'zackly, though I might 'ave, you not being used a-doin' for yourself. What was in me mind was that you might be scared outen your wits your first night alone, what with all them there cat burglars we reads on nowadays."

When the girl laughed, or rather tried to, Kinloch knew she was standing with her back close against the cupboard door, more afraid of Mrs. Spedding than Mrs. Spedding would have believed. Afraid, too, she must have been of what the old woman might let out in his hearing.

"Well, you see I'm not a bit scared."

From her shaky tone Kinloch would have said she was in mortal terror; but the old woman cackled wheezily.

"No, miss--ma'am, I mean--but all the same if you'll 'scuse me, you've lost your roses. Quite pale you be. Last night I was putting it down to your travels, but now I sees 'tain't."

The voice stopped abruptly and then there came rather tremulously the question:

"What is it, Mrs. Spedding?"

"I thought you was alone here."

What the old woman had seen Kinloch could not guess, but he felt as if their game was up already.

"What makes you think I'm not?" came faintly from the other side of the door.

"The table's a-laid for two, and two's been using the things!"

Then in the horrible pause that followed the old woman laughed.

"Ah, I see how 'tis--seein' them two cups give me quite a turn; but that on t'other side be the one you used last night, I reckon."

"I was so tired last night, Mrs. Spedding."

There came a quick clatter as the old dame began to collect the dishes. Kinloch waited for another exclamation. Fortunately, however, her eagerness to gossip kept her from discovering what he expected her to discover, what his own touch would have instantly told him--that _both_ the cups were warm.

"Ah, reckon the air of the Downs will put ee to rights. You used to thrive on it when ee was a little un." She sighed reminiscently. "Folks ain't forgotten you 'ere, Miss Stella. And that reminds me, we all saw your fortygraft in the papers the time you was wedded. Tolputt--you remember Mr. Tolputt at the post office--ee twisted it round a pot o' molasses for Mrs. Prebble, and never noticed it were you. But there, men don't never notice nothin', except it hits them somewheres. But Mrs. Prebble saw who 'twere--trust her!--and she cut the fortygraft out, and showed it all round. It was that picture of you stepping out o' church under a harchway of swords, and you holding a nosegay. 'Appy you looked! I'd have knowed your smile anywheres. Yes, I reckon it were that smile first showed us who 'twas."

The door behind which Kinloch stood creaked as if some one had leant heavily against it, and after the cheerful Mrs. Spedding had stumped off with her loaded tray he heard in the empty room something between a sigh and a sob. And this at least was more than he wanted to hear.

Mrs. Spedding came bustling back in a moment, however, brushing the cloth as she resumed her talk.

"Jane Prebble, she put the fortygraft in her Prayer Book next Sunday to show the folks coming outer church. It was wonderful to see how it waked them all up. Crowdin' round her they all came. Farmer Noakes first 'ad it in his hand, and what with all the rest a-craning of their necks over his shoulders to see what 'twas, while he was getting out his glasses--well, if he didn't have to set down on the late Mrs. Uden's tomb to keep 'em off his back. But all the same some on them cried out your name afore ee got the glasses to his nose. 'So 'tis,' ee says, holding it out and a-cockin' his head, 'so 'tis. Townified of course, but Miss Stella it be.' Then ee hold it outen to show 'em. 'Folks,' ee says, 'who'd a-thought of that grand lady once a-riding my old Buller bare back, and a-stroddle, as bold as brass?' Old Jacob Wytch caught up the talk then. 'A taking young 'ussy she always were. Whoi, masters, afore I knowed who she was didn't I catch her in the orchard among my cherries one marnin', and dang me if I didn't find myself afore I knew a-showing 'er where t' best ones was.' Young Bob Ames, ee cut in then: ''Twasn't perticklar like you, Jacob Wytch, that wasn't,' he says. But Mr. Noakes nodded as he tooken off his glasses. 'No,' he says, 'it wasn't like Wytch to act so, but it were main like she to get un.' And all the folks laughed _so_ hearty at Jacob. 'So t' little maid's married?' Mr. Noakes says. Then young Bob, he says, 'Let's look at the fellow she's a-wed to,' taking over the picture. But Jane Prebble snatched it away, proper angry, and Jacob Wytch cuffed young Bob's ear. 'Be that a way to speak of the high nobility? Fellow indeed,' he says."

Mrs. Spedding might apparently have rattled on, but a sudden pause almost coincided with a sort of moan that came from the other side of the door.

"Bain't you feeling well, ma'am--m'lady I mean?"

From her tone Mrs. Spedding was aghast.

"Oh yes--quite--well. Just a little--faint after--after yesterday. A glass of water, please."

"There, drat me if I haven't wearied you out with my gabble!"

The old woman hobbled off to the kitchen. In a moment the other, as if recovered from her faintness, had Kinloch out of his cupboard and along the passage, pushing him into his own room. The rapidity of the change left him breathless. For the clever fashion in which he had been manœuvred out of earshot by a woman who had seemed to be on the point of collapse gave him food for thought. His sympathy, he now felt, had been wasted. He was almost certain that that sudden faintness, with the demand for water, if real at all, was due less to the dread of detection by Mrs. Spedding than to the fact that the old woman was on the verge of saying more than the lady would wish him to hear. Of course she did not trust him. Her refusal to tell him so much as the name of the village proved that, and now he felt sore over that distrust--and the sympathy he had wasted. In consequence, at lunch, after the old woman left, he said:

"So your name is Stella?"

"Yes."

"Stella means a star."

"Yes."

"I've been wondering how to address you; it's awkward to be with a person who is--well, anonymous as well as invisible."

"You may call me Stella."

"But I don't want to. A star means nothing to a blind man--doesn't exist for him."

She said nothing at all to this.

"She called you 'm'lady' once," he reminded her. "That might be better."

"That means nothing either--just a poor old woman's courtesy."

"So as I don't know your surname I shall have to call you Stella?"

"Circumstances give you that privilege," she said coldly.

"Well, it does seem a little over intimate after one day's acquaintance."

He waited in vain for any response.

"So I am going to be told nothing?" he said at length.

"The less you know the better."

"Better for whom?" he asked.

"Yourself."

"Is that a threat, then?"

He heard the door shut as she left the room.