“You’d best be getting back,” he said shortly.
Jane felt as if some one had lifted a heavy weight off the top of her head. The weight must have been fear, and yet she did not know that she had been afraid.
“Can you get into the hall?” he said. “Without being seen, I mean.”
“I’m not sure, it’s awfully risky. But I could walk home from the headland, that would be much safer, and if I’ve been missed, it would account for my absence.”
“The headland—you know that too?” he said. Then, with an impatient jerk he switched off the light, turned on his torch, and walked ahead of Jane in silence.
Never in all her life had Jane seen anything so beautiful as the clear rain-washed sky, the grey rain-stilled sea. The little thud of the stone closing between her and Mr. Molloy was one of the most delightful sounds that she had ever heard. She felt as if she had never really appreciated the daylight before. There were nice woolly clouds on the horizon. The damp air was fresh, not like the air in those abominable passages. There was a gorse bush with about two and a half yellow flowers on it, rather sodden with the rain. Jane regarded them with intense affection.
She walked down the gravel path, drawing long breaths and ready to sing with pure relief—“Ease after toyle, port after stormie seas.” She frowned, remembering the next line. After all, they were not out of the wood yet. An unpleasant proverb succeeded Spenser’s line—“He laughs longest who laughs last.”
“Rubbish,” said Jane out loud, and she began to run.
She came in with such a glowing colour that Mr. Ember, who met her in the hall, was moved to remark upon it.
“You seem to have enjoyed your walk. Where have you been?”
The roll of typed paper pricked her knee beneath her stocking top. In her arms she carried a sheaf of yellow tulips. She made haste to her room and set the flowers in a jar on the broad window ledge where they could be plainly seen from the terrace. With all her heart she prayed that George Patterson, who was Anthony Luttrell, would see them. She did not know that George Patterson had ceased to exist, and that Anthony Luttrell, having taken the law into his own impatient hands, was on his way to London.
There had been an encounter with Raymond in the laboratory—her hand for a moment on his arm, his muscles rigid under her touch; not a word spoken on either side, not a word needed. The scene carried Anthony to his breaking-point. At the next roll-call George Patterson was missing. Meanwhile Raymond was behind a locked door, and Jane set yellow tulips on her window-sill.