XVI

Connie was very angry that Mrs. Bolton knew her secret: for certainly she knew it.

Suddenly Constance stood still on the path.

“It’s monstrous that I should have to be followed!” she said, her eyes flashing.

“Oh! your Ladyship, don’t say that! He’d certainly have sent the two men, and they’d have come straight to the hut. I didn’t know where it was, really.”

Connie flushed darker with rage, at the suggestion. Yet, while her passion was on her, she could not lie. She could not even pretend there was nothing between herself and the keeper. She looked at the other woman, who stood so sly, with her head dropped: yet somehow, in her femaleness, an ally.

“Oh well!” she said. “If it is so, it is so. I don’t mind!”

“Why, you’re all right, my Lady! You’ve only been sheltering in the hut. It’s absolutely nothing.”

They went on to the house. Connie marched in to Clifford’s room, furious with him, furious with his pale, overwrought face and prominent eyes.

“I must say, I don’t think you need send the servants after me!” she burst out.

“My God!” he exploded. “Where have you been, woman? You’ve been gone hours, hours, and in a storm like this! What the hell do you go to that bloody wood for? What have you been up to? It’s hours even since the rain stopped, hours! Do you know what time it is? You’re enough to drive anybody mad. Where have you been? What in the name of hell have you been doing?”