"And every one of them made up again," Mrs. Crayford reiterated, in her turn. "There! a plainer answer than that you can't wish to have. Now are you satisfied? Mr. Steventon, come and lend a hand (as you say at sea) with the hamper--Clara won't help me.
William, don't stand there doing nothing. This hamper holds a great deal; we must have a division of labor. Your division shall be laying the tablecloth. Don't handle it in that clumsy way! You unfold a table-cloth as if you were unfurling a sail. Put the knives on the right, and the forks on the left, and the napkin and the bread between them. Clara, if you are not hungry in this fine air, you ought to be. Come and do your duty; come and have some lunch!"
She looked up as she spoke. Clara appeared to have yielded at last to the conspiracy to keep her in the dark. She had returned slowly to the boat-house doorway, and she was standing alone on the threshold, looking out. Approaching her to lead her to the luncheon-table, Mrs. Crayford could hear that she was speaking softly to herself. She was repeating the farewell words which Richard Wardour had spoken to her at the ball.
"'A time may come when I shall forgive _you_. But the man who has robbed me of you shall rue the day when you and he first met.'
Oh, Frank! Frank! does Richard still live, with your blood on his conscience, and my image in his heart?"
Her lips suddenly closed. She started, and drew back from the doorway, trembling violently. Mrs. Crayford looked out at the quiet seaward view.
"Anything there that frightens you, my dear?" she asked. "I can see nothing, except the boats drawn up on the beach."
"_I_ can see nothing either, Lucy."
"And yet you are trembling as if there was something dreadful in the view from this door."
"There _is_ something dreadful! I feel it, though I see nothing.
I feel it, nearer and nearer in the empty air, darker and darker in the sunny light. I don't know what it is. Take me away! No.
Not out on the beach. I can't pass the door. Somewhere else! somewhere else!"
Mrs. Crayford looked round her, and noticed a second door at the inner end of the boat-house. She spoke to her husband.
"See where that door leads to, William."
Crayford opened the door. It led into a desolate inclosure, half garden, half yard. Some nets stretched on poles were hanging up to dry. No other objects were visible--not a living creature appeared in the place. "It doesn't look very inviting, my dear," said Mrs. Crayford. "I am at your service, however. What do you say?"
She offered her arm to Clara as she spoke. Clara refused it. She took Crayford's arm, and clung to him.
"I'm frightened, dreadfully frightened!" she said to him, faintly. "You keep with me--a woman is no protection; I want to be with you." She looked round again at the boat-house doorway.
"Oh!" she whispered, "I'm cold all over--I'm frozen with fear of this place. Come into the yard! Come into the yard!"
"Leave her to me," said Crayford to his wife. "I will call you, if she doesn't get better in the open air."
He took her out at once, and closed the yard door behind them.
"Mr. Steventon, do you understand this?" asked Mrs. Crayford.
"What can she possibly be frightened of?"
She put the question, still looking mechanically at the door by which her husband and Clara had gone out. Receiving no reply, she glanced round at Steventon. He was standing on the opposite side of the luncheon-table, with his eyes fixed attentively on the view from the main doorway of the boat-house. Mrs. Crayford looked where Steventon was looking. This time there was something visible. She saw the shadow of a human figure projected on the stretch of smooth yellow sand in front of the boat-house.
In a moment more the figure appeared. A man came slowly into view, and stopped on the threshold of the door.