‘Is it Miss Fortescue? Her ladyship said you would be coming to sit with Miss Dryden. I can’t get her to take anything, but I’m keeping it hot by the fire. She did ought to have something.’

Ray said, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

She had her eyes on the bed, but there was no stir, no movement. She went to the door with Mary Good. As she was stepping back into the room, the woman whispered,

‘You’re not afraid to stay with her?’

‘Afraid?’

‘Well, she seems quiet enough,’ said Mary Good.

Ray shut the door and went over to the bed. She felt sick with anger. Afraid? Of Lila? So that was the downstairs gossip- Lila had stabbed Herbert Whitall, and must be watched lest she did someone else a mischief! Lila!

She could see quite clearly now. Lila was lying stretched out rigidly with her face buried in the pillows. There was nothing to be seen of her except a cloud of hair, shadowy in the dusk of the room. Ray put a hand on the shoulder nearest to her and said,

‘Lila-it’s Ray. Aren’t you going to speak to me?’

There was a faint tremor, instantly stilled.

‘Lila-’

A hand came out and caught at hers. It was cold.

‘Has she gone?’

‘Yes.’

‘There isn’t anyone else-only you?’

‘Only me.’

The hand pushed faintly.

‘Lock the door-’

When she came back after turning the key Lila was sitting up. She had thrust the bedclothes back and sat stiffly upright with a hand on either side of her, pressing down upon the bed. She said in a strained, gasping way,

‘Pull back the curtain-I can’t see you-I want to see you.’

Well, that was something to the good. If ever Ray had hated anything in her life she hated this horrid gloom. It was with considerable relief that she drew back the curtains of the nearer window and let in daylight and a pale gleam of sunshine. But she wasn’t prepared for what the light would show her. She thought she knew Lila inside out, but she had never seen her like this. It wasn’t just her pallor, or that she looked most dreadfully ill. The pale hair had lost its gold. It fell dank and tangled about her shoulders, and her eyes stared as if they saw something dreadful and couldn’t stop seeing it.

She said, ‘Come here,’ and when Ray came she turned the stare on her and said,

‘Did I do it?’

‘Of course you didn’t!’

‘He’s dead, you know. Herbert is dead. I don’t know whether I did it. Adrian is the only person who knows, and they won’t let him come. I want Adrian.’

‘He’s just across the landing-he can come to you at once. He is waiting for me to let him know whether you would like him to come.’

‘You won’t let Aunt Sybil in? I only want Adrian.’

‘I won’t let anyone else in, I promise you. I’ll go and get him.’

It didn’t take a minute, because he was waiting with his door ajar. She slipped across the landing, but before she was there he was out of his room and they were going back together. There wasn’t a sound in the house until they were right at Lila’s door. Then Lady Dryden’s voice came floating up from the hall with its sweet polished tone. Ray could remember calling it a shiny voice when she was a child. She shut the door on it now and turned the key in the lock again.

Lila was just as she had left her. The same strained pose. The same staring look. It was fixed on Adrian now. She began to speak in that unnatural voice.

‘Herbert is dead. He was stabbed. I saw him. But I don’t know if I did it. They can’t tell me, because they don’t know. And I can’t remember. Lucy Ashton killed the man they made her marry, and I can’t remember if I killed Herbert. I didn’t mean to, but I can’t remember. You are the only person who can tell me. Did I do it, Adrian?’

‘Of course you didn’t!’

He was sitting on the bed beside her, but not touching her yet.

‘Are you sure?’ Her voice had a wavering note.

‘I’m quite sure. Give me your hands. And let me cover you up-you’ll get cold.’

The pale night-dress was slipping from her shoulders. The tangle of hair fell over them. She went on staring at Adrian Grey.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure. Now listen! You were walking in your sleep. I heard you come out of your room, and I followed you downstairs. You went into the study. Poor Herbert was lying there dead before you came. Hold on to that. He was lying there dead before you came out of your room and started to go downstairs. I was behind you all the way, and he was dead before either of us came into the study.’

A shudder went over her.

‘I woke up-and he was dead. And my hand was red.’

‘Yes, I know. You must have touched him.’

She shook her head with a curious stiff motion.

‘I wouldn’t do that-I wouldn’t touch him. I hated him to touch me.’ The shudder went over her again.

‘You were walking in your sleep-you didn’t know what you were doing.’

‘I wouldn’t touch Herbert.’ She leaned towards him, lifting her hand from the bed and holding it out. ‘It was all red. How did it get like that? I wouldn’t touch him-not however much I was walking in my sleep.’

Under his air of quiet control Adrian Grey was aghast. What sort of crime had Sybil Dryden been prepared to abet, and what sort of crime had he been prepared to condone? If Herbert Whitall were not now lying dead, they would have been standing by whilst this child married him. He said in a warm, strong voice,

‘There are a lot of things we don’t know, but there is one you can be sure about-you had nothing to do with Herbert’s death. You can be quite, quite sure about that.’

‘Can I?’

‘Yes. He must have been dead before you came downstairs.’

He had taken the hand she was holding out, clasping it firmly. All at once she gave him the other one. She was shivering a little. She said in a surprised voice,

‘I’m cold,’ and he put the eiderdown round her and pulled up the pillows.

Ray came forward with the cup of soup which had been keeping hot by the fire.

‘This will warm you, darling.’

‘ ’Will it?’

Her voice had changed. The strain had gone out of it. It was comfortable to have Adrian ’s arm round her and to lean against his shoulder. She drank the soup and ate some of the chicken mould which Mrs. Marsham had sent up. She was warmed and fed, and the horrid feeling about not being able to remember was gone. She hadn’t done anything dreadful after all. Adrian said so. A pleasant drowsiness began to come over her. When Adrian laid her back on her pillows and tucked her up she opened her eyes for a moment.

‘I don’t want Aunt Sybil to come.’

‘She won’t if you go to sleep. But there’s nothing to be afraid of, you know.’

Half asleep and smiling, she spoke the thought that was in her mind-‘Nothing to be afraid of…She can’t make me marry Herbert now…’

CHAPTER XXI

Miss Silver spent a not unprofitable afternoon. Unlike so many country houses, Vineyards was provided with an up-to-date system of heating which kept the whole house at a comfortable temperature. The drawing-room, so spacious, so well proportioned, would have been quite on the chilly side without it. As it was, she was able to enjoy a seat in the sofa corner and get on very well indeed with little Josephine’s vest, whilst encouraging Lady Dryden to talk and receiving a great deal of information about everyone and everything-Lila’s history from the time when her improvident young parents had been killed together in a motor accident-‘And what would have happened to her, I can’t imagine, if my husband hadn’t come forward. They were quite distant cousins, and he was under no obligation to do so, but he was a childless widower at the time, and she was a pretty little thing. There was no legal adoption, but he treated her exactly as if she was his own child. Men are much more sentimental than women-don’t you think so? I am fond of Lila of course, but I couldn’t feel as if she were a child of my own. We were not married until some time later. He really did spoil and indulge her to an absurd extent. I have done my best to counteract it, but it is those early years that count. This marriage would have been the making of her-an older man upon whom she could lean, and complete security so far as money was concerned. I have never known anyone less fitted to struggle with the world than Lila is.’