That altered everything. He staggered into Mizzi's office reading the
headlines incredulously, and I left him there, believing that she would
manage things better than I could.
He didn't write to Helen after all. He tried to, afterwards; but when,
towards dusk, the news came through that Severn was among the seriously
injured, he gave it up in despair. It was hopeless; there were no words
in his vocabulary to cope with this new and more terrible situation--no
words except the words he kept uttering to me in eager, half-frightened
gasps. "She _must_ help him now, Hilton--she _must_ stay with him and
help him now--oh, she _must_--she _must_--she couldn't do anything
else.... She couldn't leave him now, could she?" He spoke almost as if
he were pleading with himself to try to believe in the essential
goodness of her. "He's never needed her before, but he'll need her now,
and she'll realize it--she's bound to, isn't she? ..." And then, like
the bursting of a dark cloud, came the inevitable--the feeling, deeper
and blacker than ever, that _he_ was responsible for all that had
happened, and especially for all that had happened to Severn. "_I_ made
him go by that train--you remember? He wanted to go to Ronacher's and
wait till the morning train--but I told him to keep to his promise--you
remember that? _I_ made him go--all this would never have happened to
him but for me.... You can see how it is, can't you?"
I was almost impressed myself by the horror of the coincidence, though I
took care not to let Terry see it. I told him briskly that it was absurd
for him to feel responsible, and that to anybody except himself the idea
would appear ridiculous. Severn would be the first to say so.
He buried his head in his hands and was silent. My assurances hadn't
helped him. It didn't matter to him what anybody else in the world said
or thought. It didn't matter what Severn said or thought. It was he
himself who held himself responsible. He was his own accuser. It really
seemed to him, in that moment of obsessing guilt, that he had
encompassed the ruin entirely by his own tragic efforts--that even, in
some dreadfully obscure way, the whole accident, and all its results,
lay to his charge. That, of course, was madness; and I think he saw it
just in time. He went to his desk and tried again--pitiably,
frenziedly--to write to Helen; but everything was wordless, voiceless;
there was nothing--_nothing_ that he could put down. I said, with an
attempt to comfort him, that Helen would almost certainly help Severn
all she could; but he answered: "I don't want her just to _help_ him. I
want her to _want_ to help him--I want her to"--he faced me with eyes
like swords and added: "I can't tell you what I mean, but I _know_ I
could tell her."
I asked no questions, for I knew he couldn't say more than he was
saying. His nerves were in shreds, racked between that dreadful sense of
personal responsibility and the still passionate ideal that made him
hope that by some stupendous effort he could put everything right....
And then, quite suddenly, he threw down his pen and walked across the
room. "I _will_ tell her," he said. "I _must_--there's no hope any other
way.... I'll leave to-night--by the express--and be in London by
Wednesday.... Oh, I _must_ go--can't you see that I _must_--_can't_
you?"