As for the poor maiden who had received the news, she knew not what to think.  She listened till the echo of Edward’s footsteps had died away, then bowed her face upon the bed.  Her sudden impulse had been to escape from sight.  Her weariness after the unwonted strain, mental and bodily, which had been put upon her by the scenes she had passed through during the long day, rendered her much more timid and shaken by her position than she would naturally have been.  She thought and thought of that single fact which had been told her —­that the first Mrs. Manston was still living—­till her brain seemed ready to burst its confinement with excess of throbbing.  It was only natural that she should, by degrees, be unable to separate the discovery, which was matter of fact, from the suspicion of treachery on her husband’s part, which was only matter of inference.  And thus there arose in her a personal fear of him.

‘Suppose he should come in now and seize me!’ This at first mere frenzied supposition grew by degrees to a definite horror of his presence, and especially of his intense gaze.  Thus she raised herself to a heat of excitement, which was none the less real for being vented in no cry of any kind.  No; she could not meet Manston’s eye alone, she would only see him in her brother’s company.

Almost delirious with this idea, she ran and locked the door to prevent all possibility of her intentions being nullified, or a look or word being flung at her by anybody whilst she knew not what she was.

8.  HALF-PAST EIGHT O’CLOCK P.M.

Then Cytherea felt her way amid the darkness of the room till she came to the head of the bed, where she searched for the bell-rope and gave it a pull.  Her summons was speedily answered by the landlady herself, whose curiosity to know the meaning of these strange proceedings knew no bounds.  The landlady attempted to turn the handle of the door.  Cytherea kept the door locked.  ’Please tell Mr. Manston when he comes that I am ill,’ she said from the inside, ‘and that I cannot see him.’

‘Certainly I will, madam,’ said the landlady.  ’Won’t you have a fire?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘Nor a light?’

‘I don’t want one, thank you.’

‘Nor anything?’

‘Nothing.’

The landlady withdrew, thinking her visitor half insane.

Manston came in about five minutes later, and went at once up to the sitting-room, fully expecting to find his wife there.  He looked round, rang, and was told the words Cytherea had said, that she was too ill to be seen.

‘She is in number twelve room,’ added the maid.

Manston was alarmed, and knocked at the door.  ‘Cytherea!’

‘I am unwell, I cannot see you,’ she said.

‘Are you seriously ill, dearest?  Surely not.’

‘No, not seriously.’

‘Let me come in; I will get a doctor.’

‘No, he can’t see me either.’