Prudence slipped a cloak over her evening dress and softly unlatched her bedroom door and stepped out on to the landing. There was no show of hesitation in her movements now. She was doing an unwise thing; she realised that perfectly; but something outside her volition urged her on to the course she was taking. She wanted to see Philip Steele, to talk with him once more—for the last time—talk with him uninterruptedly with no fear of being seen or overheard, with the certainty of being alone together, unsuspected, and with no explanations to be demanded by any one concerning their doings. The freedom of the thought was like a breath of fresh air in her lungs.
But there was need for caution too. She stood still for a second or so on the landing, and listened with rapidly beating heart to the sounds which disturbed the silence of the sleeping house. Every one had gone to bed hours before; the lights were all extinguished; but the moonlight shone at intervals brightly through the big windows, and illumined the staircase and the hall below.
Prudence grasped the bannister and began the descent. Carefully though she trod, the stairs creaked ominously as they never seemed to creak in the daylight. And the great clock in the hall swung its heavy pendulum noisily backwards and forwards. The familiar sound struck unfamiliarly on her excited fancy; it seemed to her that the old clock was ticking a warning, that it sought to rouse the house. Stealthily she crossed the hall towards the drawing-room; the windows were easier to unfasten than the barred and chained front door. To reach the drawing-room it was necessary to pass the library; in doing so a sound from within the room caught her attention, causing her heart to momentarily stop its beating. Some one was moving about, treading with heavy cautiousness over the carpet. She took a hurried run, heedless, in her fear of being discovered there, whether her footsteps were audible or not, and gaining the drawing-room door, slipped inside the room, and remained still, watchful and alert.
The figure of a man emerged from the library, hesitated, and then approached the hat-rack in the hall. Prudence watched the man while he divested himself of his cap and overcoat and shoes before going quietly upstairs, shoes in hand, to his room. She stood amazed and surveyed these doings through the narrow opening of the partially closed door. Intuition assured her that these mysterious proceedings were not connected in any way with herself. Whatever it was that had taken William abroad it could have no association with her concerns. William had shown as furtively anxious a desire to avoid detection as she had; he wore the air of a person engaged in nefarious practices. The hall was not sufficiently light to reveal the expression of worried annoyance on his face; she recognised only the familiar outline of his form, and noted the secretiveness of his movements, and the care with which, in his stockinged feet, he had crept upstairs.
Abruptly some words of Bobby’s, uttered half jestingly years ago, recurred in an illuminating flash across her mind: “You are taking it too much for granted that the old boy’s life is lived on the surface.” Perhaps after all William had a life apart from the factory and the home, a life which he did not choose to reveal before the world. It was strangely disconcerting to discover a person whom one had believed hitherto to have walked always circumspectly through life, stealing furtively about the house in the middle of the night like a burglar in search of plunder.
In the surprise of this amazing development in the night’s proceedings, Prudence lost sight of her own fears and became wonderfully clear-headed and reliant. The responsibility of her present action weighed less heavily with her. She unfastened the window quietly, and without haste, and stepped out on to the gravelled path. Immediately Steele was beside her. It seemed to her little short of miraculous that William should be abroad and have failed to discover his presence. Steele, as a matter of fact, was alive to William’s nocturnal prowling, and had concealed himself from sight among the shrubs. He came forward now quickly and with caution, took Prudence’s hand, and led her from the garden.
“Some one’s about,” he said.
“William,” she whispered back. “We only missed coming face to face in the hall by the fraction of a second.”
“I know.” He gripped her hand tightly. “When I saw him pass round the corner of the house I made sure you’d run into him. What’s he doing, anyway?”
“I don’t know. He was so anxious to avoid detection that it was easy to evade him.” She laughed nervously. “I wonder what would have happened if I had run into him?”