He was simply caught
in some unheard-of snare—caught, how? when? where? by whom? CHAPTER TWO


But the coolness and deliberation of his scrutiny, had to a certain
extent calmed Lawford’s mind and given him confidence. Hitherto he had
met the little difficulties of life only to vanquish them with ease and
applause. Now he was standing face to face with the unknown. He burst
out laughing, into a long, low, helpless laughter. Then he arose and
began to walk softly, swiftly, to and fro across the room—from wall to
wall seven paces, and at the fourth, that awful, unseen, brightly-lit
profile passed as swiftly over the tranquil surface of the
looking-glass. The power of concentration was gone again. He simply
paced on mechanically, listening to a Babel of questions, a conflicting
medley of answers. But above all the confusion and turmoil of his
brain, as a boatswain’s whistle rises above a storm, so sounded that
same infinitesimal voice, incessantly repeating another question now,
‘What are you going to do? What are you going to do?’

And in the midst of this confusion, out of the infinite, as it were,
came another sharp tap at the door, and all within sank to utter
stillness again. ‘It’s nearly half-past eight, Arthur; I can’t wait any longer.’

Lawford cast a last fleeting look into the glass, turned, and
confronted the closed door. ‘Very well, Sheila, you shall _not_ wait
any longer.’ He crossed over to the door, and suddenly a swift crafty
idea flashed into his mind. He tapped on the panel. ‘Sheila,’ he said softly, ‘I want you first,
before you come in, to get me something out of my old writing-desk in
the smoking-room. Here is the key.’ He pushed a tiny key—from off the
ring he carried—beneath the door. ‘In the third little drawer from the
top, on the left side, is a letter; please don’t say anything now. It
is the letter you wrote me, you will remember, after I had asked you to
marry me. You scribbled in the corner under your signature the initials
“Y.S.O.A.”—do you remember? They meant, You Silly Old Arthur!—do you
remember? Will you please get that letter at once?’

‘Arthur,’ answered the voice from without, empty of all expression,
‘what does all this mean, this mystery, this hopeless nonsense about a
silly letter? What has happened? Is this a miserable form of
persecution? Are you mad?—I refuse to get the letter.’

Lawford stooped, black and angular, against the door. ‘I am not mad. Oh, I am in the deadliest earnest, Sheila. You _must_ get the letter,
if only for your own peace of mind.’ He heard his wife hesitate as she
turned. He heard a sob. And once more he waited. ‘I have brought the letter,’ came the low toneless voice again. ‘Have you opened it?’

There was a rustle of paper. ‘Are the letters there underlined three
times—“Y.S.O.A.”?’

‘The letters are there.’

‘And the date of the month is underneath, “April 3rd.” No one else in
the whole world, living or dead, could know of this but ourselves,
Sheila?’

‘Will you please open the door?’

‘No one?’

‘I suppose not—no one.’

‘Then come in.’ He unlocked the door and opened it. A dark, rather
handsome woman, with sleek hair, in a silk dress of a dark rich colour
entered. Lawford closed the door. But his face was in shadow. He had
still a moment’s respite. ‘I need not ask you to be patient,’ he began quickly; ‘if I could
possibly have spared you—if there had been anybody in the world to go
to... I am in horrible, horrible trouble, Sheila. It is inconceivable. I said I was sane: so I am, but the fact is—I went out for a walk; it
was rather stupid, perhaps, so soon: and I think I was taken ill, or
something—my heart. A kind of fit, a nervous fit. Possibly I am a
little unstrung, and it’s all, it’s mainly fancy: but I think, I can’t
help thinking it has a little distorted—changed my face; everything,
Sheila; except, of course, myself. Would you mind looking?’ He walked
slowly and with face averted towards the dressing-table. ‘Simply a nervous—to make such a fuss, to scare!...’ began his wife,
following him. Without a word he took up the two old china candlesticks, and held
them, one in each lank-fingered hand, before his face, and turned. Lawford could see his wife—every tint and curve and line as distinctly
as she could see him. Her cheeks never had much colour; now her whole
face visibly darkened, from pallor to a dusky leaden grey, as she
gazed. It was not an illusion then; not a miserable hallucination. The
unbelievable, the inconceivable, had happened. He replaced the candles
with trembling fingers and sat down. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘what is it really; what is it really, Sheila? What on
earth are we to do?’

‘Is the door locked?’ she whispered. He nodded. With eyes fixed
stirlessly on his face, Sheila unsteadily seated herself, a little out
of the candlelight, in the shadow. Lawford rose and put the key of the
door on his wife’s little rose-wood prayer-desk at her elbow, and
deliberately sat down again. ‘You said “a fit”—where?’

‘I suppose—is—is it very different—hopeless? You will understand my
being... O Sheila, what am I to do?’ His wife sat perfectly still,
watching him with unflinching attention. ‘You gave me to understand—“a nervous fit”; where?’

Lawford took a deep breath, and quietly faced her again. ‘In the old
churchyard, Widderstone; I was looking at—at the gravestones.’

‘A fit; in the old churchyard, Widderstone—you were “looking at the
gravestones”?’

Lawford shut his mouth. ‘I suppose so—a fit,’ he said presently. ‘My
heart went a little queer, and I sat down and fell into a kind of
doze—a stupor, I suppose. I don’t remember anything more. And then I
woke; like this.’

‘How do you know?’

‘How do I know what?’

‘“Like that”?’

He turned slowly towards the looking-glass. ‘Why, here I am!’

She gazed at him steadily; and a hard, incredulous, almost cunning
glint came into her wide blue eyes. She took up the key carelessly,
glanced at it; glanced at him. ‘It has made me—I mean the first shock,
you know—it has made me a little faint.’ She walked slowly,
deliberately to the door, and unlocked it. ‘I’ll get a little sal
volatile.’ She softly drew out the key, and without once removing her
eyes from his face, opened the door and pushed the key noiselessly in
on the other side. ‘Please stay there; I won’t be a minute.’

Lawford’s face smiled—a rather desperate, yet for all that a patient,
resolute smile. ‘Oh yes, of course,’ he said, almost to himself, ‘I had
not foreseen—at least—you must do precisely what you please, Sheila. You were going to lock me in. You will, however, before taking any
final step, please think over what it will entail. I did not think you
would, after such proof, in this awful trouble—I did not think you
would simply disbelieve me, Sheila. Who else is there to help me? You
have the letter in your hand. Isn’t that sufficient proof? It was
overwhelming proof to me. And even I doubted too; doubted myself.