In the dogcart which presently appeared was her husband--her
real husband--Gregory Lamb. The sight of him took her wholly by
surprise, and filled her with unwonted perturbation. What was he
doing there? What could have brought him to that neighbourhood?
She had taken it for granted that he had long since returned to
London. Even Mrs. Macconichie's--supposing he was still there,
which seemed unlikely--was a good twelve miles away. She was
conscious that he was not alone in the trap. Who his companion
was she had not noticed; she had not time.
The vehicle drew rapidly level with the tree on which she
rested. She decided that she might venture to peep again, and
was just doing so when the horse shied so violently that the
cart was almost overturned. Recovering itself, apparently
getting the bit between its teeth, it bolted like a thing
possessed, and vanished from her sight, though not before she
had nearly convinced herself that the man with her husband--the
one who was driving--was Dr. Twelves. She had only seen him from
the back, and then had had but occasional glimpses through
intervening trees for half-a-dozen seconds, but she was almost
sure that it was he. There was, however, just a possibility that
she was mistaken, and it was that possibility which worried her.
She would have liked to have been certain, either one way or the
other. Then, in the case of the worst, she might have been
prepared.
For the juxtaposition could but mean trouble for her. She was
too clear-sighted to delude herself with the notion that the
doctor was anxious to be a friend of hers. He had, to outward
seeming, accepted the situation; probably, in part, because, as
she herself put it, she was no ordinary woman; and partly
because, under the circumstances, considering the part which he
himself had played, he did not see what else there was for him
to do. Let him, however, learn how wholly baseless was her claim
to occupy the place which she had arrogated to herself, and she
did not for a moment doubt that he would use that knowledge to
oust her from it in the shortest possible space of time.
The only two points on which she had her doubts were: Was it
really the doctor who was driving Gregory Lamb? and, if so, had
Gregory Lamb given him cause to even suspect the relation in
which she stood to him? On a third point there was no doubt--the
dogcart had been moving from, not towards the house, so that in
any case the peril was not actually approaching her now.
Another thought suddenly occurred to her, one which set her
heart beating faster than was altogether agreeable. The doctor
and her husband might have been to the house already, in which
case danger might be awaiting her return to what she had learned
to call her home.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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