The hope that lay in such thoughts as these helped her to support the strain of three long waiting days and four long sleepless nights. Then on the fourth day, Saturday, the strain was relieved.
"Mrs. Dale," said Ridgett, speaking to her from the bottom of the stairs, "would you be disposed for a little stroll before tea?"
"No, thank you, Mr. Ridgett."
"Have pity on a lonely stranger, and change your mind," said Mr. Ridgett, smiling up at her.
"No, really not--but thank you for offering it."
"You know, it isn't right the way you shut yourself up this lovely weather."
"I--I have not been feeling quite myself, Mr. Ridgett."
"No, so your maid told me. But, still, I am afraid it's the way to make yourself worse, never going out of doors;" and Mr. Ridgett laughed amiably. "I won't press you--that is, I won't press you to honor me with your company; but I do respectfully press my advice to get out a bit. You know I feel a responsibility to look after you in the absence of your lord and master."
"Thank you."
"By the way, I had a note from him this morning."
"From Mr. Dale?"
"Yes."
"Oh, had you? Where--" Mavis gripped the baluster rail so tightly that the slender wooden uprights rattled. She had nearly asked a question which would have betrayed the fact that she did not know her husband's address. "Did he write from his lodgings?"
"No, he wrote from a public library. Lambeth--yes, the Lambeth Library."
"What did he say?"
"Only confirmed your report that he wouldn't be back till the twenty-eighth." Mr. Ridgett laughed again. "And told me that the clocks ought to be wound up Thursday, and he hoped we hadn't let them run down. We hadn't, you know."
Mavis was inexpressibly relieved; and yet that night she did not sleep any better than on the preceding nights. The worst anxiety had gone, but so much that was distressing in her situation remained. Since Will was alive now, he would continue to live. And that little circumstance of his remembering about the clocks was full of promise--that is, promise concerning himself. It implied that he meant to go on much as usual. He would come back, and be postmaster as in the past. But what would he do with her?
Would he go for a divorce? Publish her shame? Perhaps, even if he were willing to spare her, he would not forego the chance of dragging down Mr. Barradine. Feeling as strongly as he did--and since the world began, surely no one in such circumstances had ever felt quite so strongly--he would seize upon the overthrow of Mr. Barradine's reputation as the obvious means of obtaining his own revenge. Then she thought of what such a scandal would mean to a gentleman of Mr. Barradine's state and status. Mr. Barradine would move heaven and earth to avert it. He might even get Will spirited away, never to be found again! One was always reading in the newspaper of mysterious, inexplicable disappearances. New fears almost as bad as the old fear began to shake her again.