“Lawrence,” she exclaimed, incredulously.  “You—­were you coming in?”

She was wrapped from head to foot in a long white opera cloak, but the jewels in her hair and at her throat glistened in the flashing light.  She moved slowly forward to his side.  Her maid, who had been coming out to open the carriage door, lingered behind.

“I—­upon my word, I scarcely know how I came here,” he answered, a little bewildered.  “I was walking home—­it is scarcely out of my way—­and thinking.  You are going out?”

She nodded.  Looking at her now more closely he saw the shadows under her eyes, only imperfectly concealed.  The little gesture with which she answered him savoured of weariness.

“Yes, I was going out.  I have sat alone with my thoughts all day, and I don’t want to end my life in a lunatic asylum.  I want a little change, that is all.  If you will come in and talk to me instead, that will do as well.  Any sort of distraction, you see,” she added, with a hard little laugh, “just to keep me from—­”

She did not finish her sentence.  He looked at her gravely, and from her to the waiting carriage.  He suddenly realized how the altered condition of affairs must affect her.

“I shall have to come and see you in a day or two,” he said.  “But now—­” he hesitated.

“Why not now, then?” she asked.

“You have an engagement,” he said.

She shook her head.

“I was only going somewhere to supper.  I was going to call for Eva
Fanesborough, and I suppose we should have had some bridge afterwards. 
Come in instead, Lawrence.  I can telephone to her.”

Already a presage of evil seemed to be forming itself in his mind.  He would have given anything to have thought of some valid excuse.

“Your carriage—­”

“Pooh!” she answered.  “John, I shall not want you to-night,” she said to the coachman.  “Come!”

She led the way, and Mannering followed.  As the maid closed the door behind them Mannering felt his breath quicken—­his sense of depression grew stronger.  He seemed threatened by some new and intangible danger.  He stood on the hearthrug while she bent over the switch and turned on the electric light in the sitting-room.  Then she threw off her cloak and looked at him curiously for a moment.  Her face softened.

“My dear Lawrence,” she said, “has politics done this, or are you ill?”

“I am quite well,” he answered.  “A little tired, perhaps.  I have had rather a trying day.”

She rang the bell, and ordered sandwiches and wine.

“You look like a corpse,” she said, and stood over him while he ate and drank.  And all the time that indefinable fear within him grew.  She made him smoke.  Then she leaned back in an easy-chair and looked across at him.

“You had something to say to me.  What was it?”

“Nothing good,” he answered.  “I have quarrelled with my party, and I have to resign my seat in the House.”