CHAPTER XXII

OVER THE EDGE


Marshalled by Mrs. Briggs, the Priory servants brought them luncheon,
laying a table at one side of the great entrance-hall, for all the lower
rooms were shuttered and closed.

Violet, with the great dog Cork vigilant and silent beside her, sat
before it as one wrapt in reverie. Now and then she roused herself to
answer at random some remark from Nick, but for the most part she sat
mutely brooding.

The meal was but a dreadful farce to Olga. She was waiting, she was
listening, she was watching. It seemed ludicrous to her stretched nerves
to be seated there with food before her, when every instant she expected
the devastating power that lurked behind the stillness to burst forth
and engulf them. It was like sitting at the very mouth of hell, feeling
the blistering heat, and yet pretending that they felt it not.

Darker and darker grew the day. They sat in a close, unearthly twilight.
Though the huge entrance-door was flung wide, no breath of air reached
them, no song of birds or sound of moving leaf. Once Olga turned her
eyes to the far glimmer of the east window, but she turned them
instantly away again, and looked no more. For it was as though a hand
were holding up a dim lantern on the other side to show her the dreadful
scene, casting a stain of crimson across the space where once had stood
the altar.