Thirdly, when Philip returned, depressed and sulky, I caught Miss Jillgall looking at him with interest and pity visible in her skinny face. What do these things mean?
I am beginning to doubt everybody. Not one of them, Philip included, cares for me--but I can frighten them, at any rate. Yesterday evening, I dropped on the floor as suddenly as if I had been shot: a fit of some sort. The doctor honestly declared that he was at a loss to account for it. He would have laid me under an eternal obligation if he had failed to bring me back to life again.
As it is, I am more clever than the doctor. What brought the fit on is well known to me. Rage--furious, overpowering, deadly rage--was the cause. I am now in the cold-blooded state, which can look back at the event as composedly as if it had happened to some other girl. Suppose that girl had let her sweetheart know how she loved him as she had never let him know it before. Suppose she opened the door again the instant after she had left the room, eager, poor wretch, to say once more, for the fiftieth time, "My angel, I love you!" Suppose she found her angel standing with his back toward her, so that his face was reflected in the glass. And suppose she discovered in that face, so smiling and so sweet when his head had rested on her bosom only the moment before, the most hideous expression of disgust that features can betray. There could be no doubt of it; I had made my poor offering of love to a man who secretly loathed me. I wonder that I survived my sense of my own degradation. Well! I am alive; and I know him in his true character at last. Am I a woman who submits when an outrage is offered to her? What will happen next? Who knows? I am in a fine humor. What I have just written has set me laughing at myself. Helena Gracedieu has one merit at least--she is a very amusing person.
I slept last night.
This morning, I am strong again, calm, wickedly capable of deceiving Mr. Philip Dunboyne, as he has deceived me. He has not the faintest suspicion that I have discovered him. I wish he had courage enough to kill somebody. How I should enjoy hiring the nearest window to the scaffold, and seeing him hanged!
Miss Jillgall is in better spirits than ever. She is going to take a little holiday; and the cunning creature makes a mystery of it. "Good-by, Miss Helena. I am going to stay for a day or two with a friend." What friend? Who cares?
Last night, I was wakeful. In the darkness a daring idea came to me. To-day, I have carried out the idea. Something has followed which is well worth entering in my Diary.
I left the room at the usual hour for attending to my domestic affairs. The obstinate cook did me a service; she was insolent; she wanted to have her own way. I gave her her own way. In less than five minutes I was on the watch in the pantry, which has a view of the house door. My hat and my parasol were waiting for me on the table, in case of my going out, too.
In a few minutes more, I heard the door opened. Mr. Philip Dunboyne stepped out. He was going to take another of his long walks.
I followed him to the street in which the cabs stand. He hired the first one on the rank, an open chaise; while I kept myself hidden in a shop door.
The moment he started on his drive, I hired a closed cab. "Double your fare," I said to the driver, "whatever it may be, if you follow that chaise cleverly, and do what I tell you."
He nodded and winked at me. A wicked-looking old fellow; just the man I wanted.
We followed the chaise.
CHAPTER LVI.
HELENA'S DIARY RESUMED.
When we had left the town behind us, the coachman began to drive more slowly. In my ignorance, I asked what this change in the pace meant. He pointed with his whip to the open road and to the chaise in the distance.
"If we keep too near the gentleman, miss, he has only got to look back, and he'll see we are following him. The safe thing to do is to let the chaise get on a bit. We can't lose sight of it, out here."
I had felt inclined to trust in the driver's experience, and he had already justified my confidence in him. This encouraged me to consult his opinion on a matter of some importance to my present interests. I could see the necessity of avoiding discovery when we had followed the chaise to its destination; but I was totally at a loss to know how it could be done. My wily old man was ready with his advice the moment I asked for it.
"Wherever the chaise stops, miss, we must drive past it as if we were going somewhere else. I shall notice the place while we go by; and you will please sit back in the corner of the cab so that the gentleman can't see you."
"Well," I said, "and what next?"
"Next, miss, I shall pull up, wherever it may be, out of sight of the driver of the chaise. He bears an excellent character, I don't deny it; but I've known him for years--and we had better not trust him. I shall tell you where the gentleman stopped; and you will go back to the place (on foot, of course), and see for yourself what's to be done, specially if there happens to be a lady in the case. No offense, miss; it's in my experience that there's generally a lady in the case. Anyhow, you can judge for yourself, and you'll know where to find me waiting when you want me again."
"Suppose something happens," I suggested, "that we don't expect?"
"I shan't lose my head, miss, whatever happens."
"All very well, coachman; but I have only your word for it." In the irritable state of my mind, the man's confident way of thinking annoyed me.
"Begging your pardon, my young lady, you've got (if I may say so) what they call a guarantee. When I was a young man, I drove a cab in London for ten years. Will that do?"
"I suppose you mean," I answered, "that you have learned deceit in the wicked ways of the great city."
He took this as a compliment. "Thank you, miss. That's it exactly."
After a long drive, or so it seemed to my impatience, we passed the chaise drawn up at a lonely house, separated by a front garden from the road. In two or three minutes more, we stopped where the road took a turn, and descended to lower ground. The farmhouse which we had left behind us was known to the driver. He led the way to a gate at the side of the road, and opened it for me.
"In your place, miss," he said slyly, "the private way back is the way I should wish to take. Try it by the fields. Turn to the right when you have passed the barn, and you'll find yourself at the back of the house." He stopped, and looked at his big silver watch. "Half-past twelve," he said, "the Chawbacons--I mean the farmhouse servants, miss--will be at their dinner. All in your favor, so far. If the dog happens to be loose, don't forget that his name's Grinder; call him by his name, and pat him before he has time enough to think, and he'll let you be. When you want me, here you'll find me waiting for orders."
I looked back as I crossed the field. The driver was sitting on the gate, smoking his pipe, and the horse was nibbling the grass at the roadside.