THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ETHEL LINA WHITE. Ethel Lina White
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old woman, too, with her overtures and her gleaming artificial smile, supplied a touch of real horror. She might be only a bed-ridden invalid, but the fact remained that she was under suspicion of having sent her husband prematurely to heaven or to hell.
Her sting might be drawn, but her desires were still lethal. Helen had proof of this in the incident of the revolver.
Her thoughts, however, slipped back to practical subjects, when, as she turned the handle of Miss Warren's room, it once again slipped round in her grasp.
"I really must get at it the instant I have a chance," she promised herself.
Miss Warren was sitting at her bureau, under the green light. Her eyes were fixed upon her book.
"Well?" she asked wearily, as, Helen entered.
"I'm sorry to disturb you," began Helen, "but Lady War—"
Before she could finish her sentence, Miss Warren was out of her chair, and crossing the room with the ungainly gait of a giraffe.
In her element, Helen followed her to the blue room. Lady Warren was lying as she had left her, with closed eyes and puffing lips. The revolver, wrapped in the silk handkerchief, was still on the kidney table, and the width of the room remote from the bed.
Yet there was some change, Helen, who was observant, noticed the fact, at once, and, in her second survey, traced it to its cause. When she had gone to fetch Miss Warren, the bed-clothes were disordered. Now, the sheet was drawn down over the eider-down, as neatly as though it had been arranged by a hospital nurse.
"Miss Capel," said Miss Warren, who was bending over the prostrate figure of her step-mother, "fetch the oxygen-cylinder."
Helen, who was always ready to experiment with unfamiliar properties, hurried to lug it across to the bed. She thoughtfully unscrewed the top, and managed to get a whiff of air, like a mountain breeze, before she surrendered it to Miss Warren.
Presently, Lady Warren revived under their joint ministrations. To Helen's awakening suspicions, it was an artistic performance, with calculated gradations of sighs, groans and fluttering lids.
Directly her eyes were open, she glared at Helen.
"Send her away," she said weakly.
Miss Warren caught Helen's eye.
"Please go, Miss Capel. I'm sorry."
Forgetful of her pose, Lady Warren turned on her stepdaughter, like some fish-wife.
"Idiot. Send her packing. Tonight."
She closed her eyes again, and murmured, "Doctor. I want the doctor."
"He'll be here presently," Miss Warren assured her.
"Why is he always late?" complained the invalid.
"Because he likes to see how you are, the last thing," explained Miss Warren ungrammatically.
"It's because he's a slacker," snarled Lady Warren. "I must change my doctor. Blanche. That girl wasn't Newton's wife. Why doesn't she come to see me?"
"You are not strong enough for visitors."
"That's not it. I know. She's afraid of me."
The idea seemed to please Lady Warren, for her face puckered up in a smile. Helen, who was watching, from a safe distance, thought that she looked positively evil. In that moment, she could almost believe in the old story of a murdered husband.
Her eye fell on the nurse's small single-bed.
"I wouldn't be that nurse, for all the money in the world," she shuddered.
Suddenly, Miss Warren became aware that she was still in the room, for she crossed over to her corner.
"I can manage by myself, Miss Capel"
Her tone was so cold that Helen tried to justify herself.
"I hope you don't think I did anything to annoy her. She changed all of a sudden. Indeed, she took a fancy to me. Anyway, she kept asking me to sleep with her, tonight."
Miss Warren's expression was incredulous, although her words were polite.
"I am sure that you were kind and tactful."
Her glance towards the door was a hint of dismissal, and Helen turned to go; but her head was humming with confused suspicions which fought for utterance. Although experience had taught her that interference is usually resented, she felt that she must warn Miss Warren.
"I think there is something you ought to know," she said, lowering her voice. "Lady Warren asked me to get her something from the little cupboard above the wardrobe mirror."
"Why do you consider that important?" asked Miss Warren.
"Because it was a revolver."
Helen achieved her effect. Miss Warren looked directly at her, with a startled expression.
"Where is it now?" she asked.
"On that table."
Miss Warren swooped down upon the small parcel with the avidity of some bird of prey. Her long white fingers loosened a fold of the silk wrapping. Then she held it out, so that Helen might see it.
It was a large spectacle case.
As she stared at it, Helen was swept off her feet by the tidal wave of an exciting possibility.
"That is not the same shape," she declared. "I felt the other. It had jutting-out bits."
"What exactly are you hinting at?"
"I think that, when I went to fetch you, Lady Warren hid the revolver and put this in its place."
"And are you aware that my mother has heart-disease, and has been unable to move for months?"
All hope of conviction died, as Helen looked at Miss Warren's sceptical face. Its fluid lines seemed to have been suddenly arrested by a sharp frost.
"I'm sorry if I've made a mistake," she faltered. "Only, I thought I ought to keep nothing back."
"I am sure you were trying to be helpful," Miss 'Warren told her. "But it only hinders to imagine stupid impossibilities." She added, with a grim smile, "I suppose, like all girls, you go to the Pictures."
In the circumstances, her reproach was almost painful irony. She seemed to be divided from Helen, not only by space, but by time. "She's prehistoric," thought the girl. Her small figure appeared actually shrunken as she went out of the blue room.
Besides being cheated out of the recognition, which was her due, she did not feel satisfied with Miss Warren's acceptance of the revolver incident.
"The customer is always right," she reminded herself, as she walked down the stairs. "But there's one comfort. Now that Lady Warren's soured on me, there will be no more talk about sleeping in her room."
Luckily, in spite of her discouragement, her sense of duty remained unimpaired. As Oates was late, she decided to take on his job of laying the dinner-table.
At the sound of footsteps, the drawing-room door was opened, and Simone looked out—her eyes parched with longing. Instantly, her husband's head reared itself over her shoulder, like a serpent.
Simone showed no signs of discomfiture. She merely shrugged and smiled. "So faithful," she murmured, as she closed the door.
Braced by this glimpse of the clash of human passions, Helen went into the dining-room. For the first time, she felt a certain degree of sympathy with Simone.
"It would get on my nerves to be followed about, like that" she thought.
It was evident that Newton's jealousy was working up to saturation-point; with Stephen's departure, he would probably become normal again, Meantime, he plainly meant to give his wife no opportunity of a final interview with the pupil.
In Helen's eyes, his obsession amounted almost to mania, as she considered the stolid indifference with