As a competent nurse and even as a friend he began to find her not disagreeable. Her hopes were high that she might yet win that shriveled and undeveloped part of him which he called his heart. As illness increased and the doctor’s time became more and more busy, Clara hoped against hope that his darling revenge was being put out of sight. With all her knowledge and all her cleverness, however, she little knew her man.
Towards the middle of December the influenza began to abate, and on a certain evening Tarbot came home early, entered his wife’s drawing-room, and, flinging himself into a chair, looked her full in the face.
“I have earned a holiday,” he said. “It will be possible for me to take it, and I mean to do so.”
“To Devonshire,” repeated Clara, sitting upright.
“Yes, to Devonshire. Mrs. Pelham, I understand, is now staying at the Towers, and I want to see her.”
He was silent for a moment, staring full into her face.
“I wish to see Mrs. Pelham, Clara, for that purpose which I mean no longer to delay in putting into execution. I have discovered beyond doubt that poison was administered to Sir Piers Pelham. The poison, without question, caused the child’s death. This poison was given by Sir Richard Pelham, who is now the owner of the property and the reigning baronet. Mrs. Pelham must know this fact without delay.”
As he spoke Clara rose from her seat and began to pace up and down the room. She had the lithe, quick movements of the tigress. She was wearing a dress with a dash of yellow in it. The dress was made of velvet and clung to her figure, which was lissom and graceful. When her husband stopped speaking she paused in front of him, her thin hands clasped.
“Why do you talk folly?” she said. “Why do you disguise your intentions and talk to me as if I did not know?”
“Because I think it best,” he replied. “We never can tell when our words may fall on other ears. That old proverb about the little bird comes true now and again, Clara. Understand once for all, that in this matter I intend from first to last to treat Pelham as if I myself believed in his guilt.”
“You are intolerable,” she cried, turning away from him. “I cannot work with you on those terms. If you will be above board, at least with me, I can then make up my mind whether I go with you or not.”