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“Wives are sometimes allowed a holiday away from their husbands.”

Field said nothing whatever. He only looked at her with unvarying attention.

She turned at last in desperation and faced him. “Percival! Why do you look at me like that?”

He turned from her instantly, without replying. “May I write a note here?” he said, and went towards the writing-table. “My pen has run dry.”

She made a movement that almost expressed panic. She was at the table before he reached it. “Ah, wait a minute! Let me clear my things out of your way first!”

She began to gather up the open blotter that lay there with feverish haste. A sheet of paper flew out from her nervous hands and fluttered to the floor at Field’s feet. He stooped and picked it up.

She uttered a gasp and turned as white as the dress she wore. “That is mine!” she panted.

He gave it to her with grave courtesy. “I am afraid I am disturbing you,” he said. “I can wait while you finish.”

But she crumpled the paper in her hand. She was trembling so much that she could hardly stand.

“It–doesn’t matter,” she said almost inaudibly.

He stood for a second or two in silence, then seated himself at the writing-table and took up a pen.

In the stillness that followed she moved away to the fire and stood before it. Field wrote steadily without turning his head. She stooped after a moment and dropped the crumpled paper into the blaze. Then she sat down, her hands tightly clasped about her knees, and waited.

Field’s quiet voice broke the stillness at length. “If you are writing letters of your own, perhaps I may leave this one in your charge.”

She looked round with a start. He had turned in his chair. Their eyes met across the room.

“May I?” he said.

She nodded, finding her voice with an effort. “Yes–of course.”

He got up, and as he did so the great dinner-gong sounded through the house. He came to her side. She rose quickly at his approach, moving almost apprehensively.

“Shall we go down?” she said.

He put out a hand and linked it in her arm. She shrank at his touch, but she endured it. She even, after a moment, seemed to be in a measure steadied by it. She stood motionless for a few seconds, and during those seconds his fingers closed upon her, very gentle, very firmly; then opened and set her free.

“Will you lead the way?” he said.

CHAPTER VI

A very hilarious party gathered at the table that night. Burleigh Wentworth was in uproarious spirits which seemed to infect nearly everyone else.

In the midst of the running tide of joke and banter Violet sat as one apart. Now and then she joined spasmodically in the general merriment, but often she did not know what she laughed at. There was a great fear at her heart, and it tormented her perpetually. That note that she had crumpled and burnt! His eyes had rested upon it during the moment he had held it in his hand. How much had they seen? And what was it that had induced him in the first place to declare his intention of curtailing their visit? Why had he reminded her that she was his wife? Surely he must have heard something–suspected something! But what?

Covertly she watched him during that interminable dinner, watched his clear-cut face with its clever forehead and intent eyes, his slightly scornful, wholly unyielding lips. She cast her thoughts backwards over their honeymoon, trying somehow to trace an adequate reason for the fear that gripped her. He had been very forbearing with her throughout that difficult time. He had been gentle; he had been considerate. Though he had asserted and maintained his mastery over her, though his will had subdued hers, he had never been unreasonable, never so much as impatient, in his treatment of her. He had given her no cause for the dread that now consumed her, unless it were that by his very self-restraint he had inspired in her a fear of the unknown.