In the sharpest and deepest shadow, which was the entrance to the house by the big French windows, Rosamund could watch a hurried consultation between Inglewood (who was still left in charge of the mysterious captive) and Diana, who had moved to his assistance from without. After a few minutes and gestures they went inside, shutting the glass doors upon the garden; and the garden seemed to grow grayer still.
The American gentleman named Pym seemed to be turning and on the move in the same direction; but before he started he spoke to Rosamund with a flash of that guileless tact which redeemed much of his childish vanity, and with something of that spontaneous poetry which made it difficult, pedantic as he was, to call him a pedant.
"I'm vurry sorry, Miss Hunt," he said; "but Dr. Warner and I, as two quali-FIED practitioners, had better take Mr. Smith away in that cab, and the less said about it the better.
Don't you agitate yourself, Miss Hunt. You've just got to think that we're taking away a monstrosity, something that oughtn't to be at all--something like one of those gods in your Britannic Museum, all wings, and beards, and legs, and eyes, and no shape.
That's what Smith is, and you shall soon be quit of him."
He had already taken a step towards the house, and Warner was about to follow him, when the glass doors were opened again and Diana Duke came out with more than her usual quickness across the lawn.
Her face was aquiver with worry and excitement, and her dark earnest eyes fixed only on the other girl.
"Rosamund," she cried in despair, "what shall I do with her?"
"With her?" cried Miss Hunt, with a violent jump. "O lord, he isn't a woman too, is he?"
"No, no, no," said Dr. Pym soothingly, as if in common fairness.
"A woman? no, really, he is not so bad as that."
"I mean your friend Mary Gray," retorted Diana with equal tartness.
"What on earth am I to do with her?"
"How can we tell her about Smith, you mean," answered Rosamund, her face at once clouded and softening. "Yes, it will be pretty painful."
"But I HAVE told her," exploded Diana, with more than her congenital exasperation. "I have told her, and she doesn't seem to mind.
She still says she's going away with Smith in that cab."
"But it's impossible!" ejaculated Rosamund. "Why, Mary is really religious. She--"
She stopped in time to realize that Mary Gray was comparatively close to her on the lawn. Her quiet companion had come down very quietly into the garden, but dressed very decisively for travel.
She had a neat but very ancient blue tam-o'-shanter on her head, and was pulling some rather threadbare gray gloves on to her hands.
Yet the two tints fitted excellently with her heavy copper-coloured hair; the more excellently for the touch of shabbiness: for a woman's clothes never suit her so well as when they seem to suit her by accident.
But in this case the woman had a quality yet more unique and attractive.
In such gray hours, when the sun is sunk and the skies are already sad, it will often happen that one reflection at some occasional angle will cause to linger the last of the light.
A scrap of window, a scrap of water, a scrap of looking-glass, will be full of the fire that is lost to all the rest of the earth.
The quaint, almost triangular face of Mary Gray was like some triangular piece of mirror that could still repeat the splendour of hours before. Mary, though she was always graceful, could never before have properly been called beautiful; and yet her happiness amid all that misery was so beautiful as to make a man catch his breath.
"O Diana," cried Rosamund in a lower voice and altering her phrase;
"but how did you tell her?"
"It is quite easy to tell her," answered Diana sombrely;
"it makes no impression at all."
"I'm afraid I've kept everything waiting," said Mary Gray apologetically, "and now we must really say good-bye. Innocent is taking me to his aunt's over at Hampstead, and I'm afraid she goes to bed early."
Her words were quite casual and practical, but there was a sort of sleepy light in her eyes that was more baffling than darkness; she was like one speaking absently with her eye on some very distant object.
"Mary, Mary," cried Rosamund, almost breaking down, "I'm so sorry about it, but the thing can't be at all. We--we have found out all about Mr. Smith."
"All?" repeated Mary, with a low and curious intonation;
"why, that must be awfully exciting."
There was no noise for an instant and no motion except that the silent Michael Moon, leaning on the gate, lifted his head, as it might be to listen. Then Rosamund remaining speechless, Dr. Pym came to her rescue in a definite way.
"To begin with," he said, "this man Smith is constantly attempting murder.
The Warden of Brakespeare College--"
"I know," said Mary, with a vague but radiant smile.
"Innocent told me."
"I can't say what he told you," replied Pym quickly, "but I'm very much afraid it wasn't true. The plain truth is that the man's stained with every known human crime. I assure you I have all the documents.
I have evidence of his committing burglary, signed by a most eminent English curate. I have--"
"Oh, but there were two curates," cried Mary, with a certain gentle eagerness;
"that was what made it so much funnier."
The darkened glass doors of the house opened once more, and Inglewood appeared for an instant, making a sort of signal.
The American doctor bowed, the English doctor did not, but they both set out stolidly towards the house.
No one else moved, not even Michael hanging on the gate; but the back of his head and shoulders had still an indescribable indication that he was listening to every word.
"But don't you understand, Mary," cried Rosamund in despair; "don't you know that awful things have happened even before our very eyes.
I should have thought you would have heard the revolver shots upstairs."
"Yes, I heard the shots," said Mary almost brightly; "but I was busy packing just then. And Innocent had told me he was going to shoot at Dr. Warner; so it wasn't worth while to come down."
