Caroline made her way up the dark drive, and on reaching the door she felt in her coat pocket for the latch-key. It was not there. Then she sought hastily in her other pocket and could not find it. Evidently she had dropped it on the road somewhere, but no one could see a small article like that now, even if it lay on the pathway.

Well, there was nothing for it but to knock at the door. She looked up at the house which loomed above her, a dark block with faintly gleaming windows, and the thud, thud, made by her knuckles seemed extraordinarily loud. But the stillness which followed seemed intense--seemed only to be accentuated by the heavy sound of the sea which she never consciously heard in the daytime, any more than Miss Ethel or the other Thorhaven people.

After a while she knocked again, but the house still lay quiet--with the peculiar deadness about it of houses seen from the outside when those within are all asleep. In the room just above the front door Miss Ethel was deep in the first stupid slumber of exhaustion produced by a long day's work and the evening walk in a high wind. She was so tired that she had ceased some time ago to lie awake and listen for Caroline coming in, though she felt it was her duty to do so. But nearly every night now she went to bed early and lay like a log, not caring about anything more until the morning. If the world came to an end, she must go to bed--she could no more.

Caroline down below stood hesitating whether to throw a stone up or not, but remembered that Mrs. Bradford was so timid that she always covered up her ears with the blanket for fear of hearing burglars in the night--priding herself indeed on this timidity, and telling people that when you once had had a husband you lost your nerve for sleeping alone. So Caroline knew there was no help to be had in that quarter, and yet she did not like to startle Miss Ethel after that fall among the half-built houses which had been more than an ordinary faint, though no one made anything of it.

However, she knocked again on the door, blows that seemed to echo through the whole of Thorhaven. She glanced nervously over her shoulder, picturing the male inhabitants of Emerald Avenue and Cornelian Crescent and Sapphire Terrace, hastily flinging on trousers and boots to see what the matter was, while their wives made shrill-voiced e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns from the bed. She saw it all quite plainly on the darkness as the noise reverberated through the still night.

Suddenly she lost her nerve. That kiss at the gate still hovered in the back of her consciousness, waiting for a fuller realization; but it had left her fluttering and tingling with emotion, so that she was less mistress of herself than usual.

Not that she had not been kissed before, and by others besides Wilf; but it had never been like this, because now for the first time a kiss woke a response which bewildered her. She began to cry.

Then she tried to pull herself together. After all, it could not be very late. What an idiot to be standing there crying, when Aunt Creddle lived only a ten minutes' walk away! Of course she could go and stay the night there. Very likely Aunt Creddle might be still up, for she took in washing for one or two people, and sometimes did the ironing after the children were in bed----

Caroline gave a sob of relief as she got to this, and turning her back on the house she began to run stumbling down the drive. When she reached the open road and was free from the heavy shadow of the privet hedge, she felt her self-confidence gradually coming back to her.

All the houses in Emerald Avenue were in darkness, but on nearing the Creddles she saw a little glimmer of light through the gla.s.s pane of the front door. It was as she had hoped, for in response to her knock, Mrs. Creddle herself unchained the door and peered out into the dark.

"Is that somebody from Mrs. White's?" she asked. "I thought she wasn't expecting until next week at the----" The good woman broke off suddenly and her voice went up several notes: "You, Caroline!"

"Yes. I lost my latch-key and I can't make them hear. I was afraid I should startle Miss Ethel if I threw anything up at her window," said Caroline, speaking quickly. "I didn't know if it might give her a turn, after that fall of hers. And you can't waken Mrs. Bradford. She wraps her head up in her petticoat and sleeps like the dead."

"Well, it's a lucky thing I happened to be up finishing the ironing,"

said Mrs. Creddle. "Your uncle wouldn't have liked it if you'd come hammering at our door and letting the whole street know you were locked out."

"I didn't lose the key on purpose," said Caroline rather sullenly, as she followed her aunt into the warm, light kitchen. "I couldn't help it."

"What made you so late in?" said Mrs. Creddle. "Here, sit you down and I'll get you a drink of cocoa. Girls never used to be having latch-keys and careering about at all hours in my day."

"But it isn't your day now, thank goodness!" said Caroline, who was feeling excited and irritable. "I had a dance on the green after I came off duty, that was all."

"Prom's been closed a long time," said Mrs. Creddle. "I heard the next-door folks come back. But we was all young once, and I dare say you and Wilf have been kissing and making friends again on the way home. Is that it?"

For some obscure reason this question angered Caroline almost beyond bearing.

"I told you I'd done with Wilf, and I have," she said rather hysterically. "I wouldn't let him kiss me now for anything on earth.

I don't know how I ever could fancy him. I----"

"Hush!" said Mrs. Creddle, glancing towards the stairs. "There's your uncle moving. I'm afraid he won't be best pleased to see you here, Carrie. And he would have pickle for his tea, though I told him not, so he's a bit fretty to start with."

Before she had finished speaking Mr. Creddle was upon them, hastily dressed in night-shirt and trousers. "Now, what's all this?" he said, and his tone certainly did betray the effect of cheap vinegar on a weak digestion.

So Mrs. Creddle explained matters while Caroline stood listening.

"Who came home with you?" said Creddle, turning with a dark face towards the two women. "I saw the bills. Dancing was over a good bit since. Who brought you home?"

"That's my business," she answered, pale and obstinate.

"Is it? Well, it's my business to take you back to your place," he said. Then he went on, raising his voice: "Do you think I'm going to have a niece of mine--that I've brought up like my own--stopping out all night? The la.s.ses in my family and in your aunt's family, too, have always been respectable--and you will be an' all, so long as I have anything to do with you."

"I'm not going back to the Cottage to-night, though. I'm going to stop here and sleep on the sofa," said Caroline defiantly.

"Hush, Carrie," pleaded Mrs. Creddle anxiously. "That isn't the way to speak to your uncle, you know. He only means it for your good."

Mr. Creddle reached for his boots. "I won't have her stop out all night," he repeated. "What would your mother ha' thought if you'd done such a thing when you were in service?"

"Only I _aren't_ in service like aunt was," answered Caroline, getting excited again. "Things are quite different from what they used to be then. You can't judge by what went on when you were young, can he, aunt?"

But Mrs. Creddle only shook her head; for somehow those words "stopped out all night" came echoing on from her youth and she felt the force of tradition at this moment no less than her husband. Always that phrase had conveyed something derogatory concerning the girl about whom it was used; and never would she or her sister Ellen have earned it while they were in service for any earthly consideration. She was still faithful to all the traditions of that skilled trade to which she had served a long apprenticeship, and which is one of the most intricate and difficult in the world. For a ma.s.s of oral knowledge handed down from one to another--accuracy, intelligence, self-control, a very high standard of personal chast.i.ty--these things formed only a part of the equipment of Caroline's aunts when they were young, and such girls as they formed an unorganized guild of service which can never be excelled in England, whatever comes. They were the best maid-servants in the world, and they did not know it. But they had a great pride in themselves, if not in their fine calling, and Mrs. Creddle felt this stir within her as she listened to her husband.

"Your uncle's right," she said. "Maybe other people will get to know you lost your key, and they mightn't believe you. You wouldn't like it to get about that you'd stopped out all night."

"I shouldn't care. I know I've done nothing wrong," said Caroline, beginning to take off her hat.

"Now, my la.s.s!" said Creddle grimly, as he finished lacing his boots, "you're coming with me. Don't let's have no nonsense!"

"I tell you, I'm not coming," said Caroline, pale about the lips and trembling a little.

"Come! Come! Carrie," said Mrs. Creddle, beginning to cry. "Don't anger your uncle. He's that wore out he didn't know where to put himself when he got home to-night, and yet here he is with his boots on ready to take you back to your place. And he's always treated you like his own, and so have I, so far as I know how. Many's the little treat we've gone without, and never grudged it, so as to bring you up nice; and this is how you pay us back."

"Oh, aunt, I know you have," said Caroline, and her eyes filled, though they had been hard and dry a minute before. "I do know how good you and uncle have been. Only I won't be taken back as if I were a little trapesing general that had been misbehaving herself. I can't!"

"There's no talk of misbehaving," said Creddle. "And I aren't going to have any. You get your hat on and come with me."

Caroline's face stiffened; then she felt the touch of Mrs. Creddle's roughened, kind hand on her arm, and saw that jolly face puckered with crying which had smiled a welcome on her all her life. She gave a great gulp and walked to the door, Creddle following her.

For she belonged--poor Caroline--to the company of those who can really love, and they are always liable to give way suddenly when fighting those they love, because they cannot bear to see the pain.

_Chapter XIII_

_Next Morning_

Miss Ethel came into the kitchen as Caroline finished washing up the breakfast things. There was a constrained atmosphere about both of them which seemed even to affect the small fire which burnt sulkily in the grate, but nothing was said concerning the events of the previous night.

"Oh! Caroline, I wonder if you would kindly take a message for me to Miss Temple on your way to the promenade?" said Miss Ethel, rather stiffly.

But on the whole the affair of the previous night had been less odious than Caroline had feared. Still it had been rather like an ugly nightmare, all the same--Uncle Creddle banging on the door until one startled woman opened it while the other peered over the banisters.

They had thanked Mr. Creddle, saying Caroline ought to be more careful: and Mrs. Bradford added that some burglar had no doubt picked up the key and would come and murder them in their beds. But there the matter ended.

Now, however, with the mention of Laura's name, the recollection of that kiss at the gate last night sprang up from some deep place within Caroline's consciousness and overwhelmed everything else. She could not go to Laura's door and perhaps be obliged to answer kind words and pleasant looks; she could not do it. "I'm sorry, Miss Ethel," she muttered, bending over the washing-bowl, "but there's not time."

Miss Ethel glanced at the clock and saw that there was time; but she could not insist, and so thought it more dignified to go away without making any remark. Still she felt irritated to an unreasonable degree, for her disturbed night had left her tired and nervous.

A few minutes later Caroline went out. There had been a change in the wind, which now blew l.u.s.tily from the north-east, and the sun was shining. As she came down the street leading to the promenade, the surface of her mind responded to the p.r.i.c.king liveliness of the salt air and the sight of the open sea in front of her. A heavy rain towards dawn had washed down mud from the cliffs which the high tide had carried away, so now the water was a milky dun-colour, scattered with millions of opal lights, answering more closely just then to the thought of a jewelled sea than even the sparkling sapphire Mediterranean.

A middle-aged visitor who had pa.s.sed constantly in and out through the barrier and knew Caroline by sight, gave her a sprightly "Good morning"

as he went through. "Most invigorating! Most invigorating!"