It was but little after daybreak when Mrs Lawford, after listening at
his door a while, turned the key and looked in on her husband.
Blue-grey light from between the venetian blinds just dusked the room.
She stood in a bluish dressing-gown, her hand on her bosom, looking
down on the lean impassive face. For the briefest instant her heart had
leapt with an indescribable surmise; to fall dull as lead once more.
Breathing equably and quietly, the strange figure lay stretched upon
the bed. ‘How can he sleep? How can he sleep?’ she whispered with a
black and hopeless indignation. What a night she had had! And he!
She turned noiselessly away. The candle had guttered to extinction. The
big glass reflected her, voluminous and wan, her dark-ringed eyes, full
lips, rich, glossy hair, and rounded chin. ‘Yes, yes,’ it seemed to
murmur mournfully. She turned away, and drawing stealthily near stooped
once more quite low, and examined the face on the pillow with lynx-like
concentration. And though every nerve revolted at the thought, she was
finally convinced, unwillingly, but assuredly, that her husband was
here. Indeed, if it were not so, how could she for a single moment have
accepted the possibility that he was a stranger? He seemed to haunt,
like a ghostly emanation, this strange, detestable face—as memory
supplies the features concealed beneath a mask. The face was still and
stony, like one dead or imaged in wax, yet beneath it dreams were
passing—silly, ordinary Lawford dreams. She was almost alarmed at the
terribly rancorous hatred she felt for the face... ‘It was just like
Arthur to be so taken in!’
Then she too remembered Quain, and remembered also in the slowly paling
dusk that the house would soon be stirring. She went out and
noiselessly locked the door again. But it was useless to begin looking
for Quain now—her husband had a good many dull books, most of them his
‘eccentric’ father’s. What must the servants be thinking? and what was
all that talk about a mysterious visitor? She would have to question
Ada—diplomatically. She returned to her room and sat down in an
arm-chair, and waited. In sheer weariness she fell into a doze, and
woke at the sound of dustpan and broom. She rang the bell, and asked
for hot water, tea, and a basin of cornflour.
‘And please, Ada, be as quiet as possible over your work; your master
is in a nice sleep, and must not be disturbed on any account. In the
front bedroom.’ She looked up suddenly. ‘By the way, who let Dr
Ferguson in last night?’ It was dangerous, but successful.
‘Dr Ferguson, ma’am? Oh, you mean... He _was_ in.’
Sheila smiled resignedly. ‘Was in? What do you mean, “was in”? And
where were you, then?’
‘I had been sent out to Critchett’s, the chemist’s.’
‘Of course, of course. So cook let Dr Ferguson in, then? Why didn’t you
say so before, Ada? And did you bring the medicine with you?’
‘It was a packet in an envelope, ma’am. But Cook is sure she heard no
knock—not while I was out. So Dr Ferguson must have come in quite
unbeknown.’
‘Well, really,’ said Sheila, ‘it seems very difficult to get at the
truth sometimes. And when illness is in the house I cannot understand
why there should be no one available to answer the door. You must have
left it ajar, unsecured, when you went out. And pray, what if Dr
Ferguson had been some common tramp? That would have been a nice
thing.’
‘I am quite certain,’ said Ada a little flatly, ‘that I did shut the
door. And cook says she never so much as stirred from the kitchen till
I came down the area steps with the packet. And that’s all I know about
it, ma’am; except that he was here when I came back. I did not know
even there was a Dr Ferguson; and my mother has lived here nineteen
years.’
‘We must be thankful your mother enjoys such good health,’ replied Mrs
Lawford suavely. ‘Please tell cook to be very careful with the
cornflour—to be sure it’s well mixed and thoroughly done.’
Mrs Lawford’s eyes followed with a certain discomfort those narrow
print shoulders descending the stairs. And this abominable ruse
was—Arthur’s! She ran up lightly and listened with her ear to the panel
of his door. And just as she was about to turn away again, there came a
little light knock at the front door.
Mrs Lawford paused at the loop of the staircase; and not altogether
with gratitude or relief she heard the voice of Mr Bethany, inquiring
in cautious but quite audible tones after her husband.
She dressed quickly and went down. The little white old man looked very
solitary in the long, fireless, drawing-room.
‘I could not sleep,’ he said; ‘I don’t think I grasped in the least, I
don’t indeed, until I was nearly home, the complexity of our problem. I
came, in fact, to a lamppost. It was casting a peculiar shadow. And
then—you know how such thoughts seize us, my dear—like a sudden
inspiration, I realised how tenuous, how appallingly tenuous a hold we
every one of us have on our mere personality. But that,’ he continued
rapidly, ‘that’s only for ourselves—and after the event. Ours, just
now, is to act. And first—?’
‘You really do, then—you really are convinced—’ began Mrs Lawford.
But Mr Bethany was too quick. ‘We must be _most_ circumspect. My dear
friend, we must be _most_ circumspect, for all our sakes. And this,
you’ll say,’ he added, smiling, stretching out his arms, his soft hat
in one hand, his umbrella in the other—‘this is being circumspect—a
seven o’clock in the morning call! But you see, my dear, I have come,
as I took the precaution of explaining to the maid, because it’s now or
never to-day. It does so happen that I have to take a wedding for an
old friend’s niece at Witchett; so when in need, you see, Providence
enables us to tell even the conventional truth. Now really, how is he?
has he slept? has he recalled himself at all? is there any change?—and,
dear me, how are _you_?’
Mrs Lawford sighed. ‘A broken night is really very little to a mother,’
she said. ‘He is still asleep. He hasn’t, I think, stirred all night.’
‘Not stirred!’ Mr Bethany repeated. ‘You baffle me. And you have
watched?’
‘Oh no,’ was the cheerful answer; ‘I felt that quiet, solitude; space,
was everything; he preferred it so. He—he changed alone, I suppose.
Don’t you think it almost stands to reason that he will be alone...when
he comes back? Was I right? But there, it’s useless, it’s worse than
useless, to talk like this. My husband is gone. Some terrible thing has
happened. Whatever the mystery may be, he will never come back alive.
My only fear is that I am dragging you into a matter that should from
the beginning have been entrusted to—Oh, it’s monstrous!’ It appeared
for a moment as if she were blinking to keep back her tears, yet her
scrutiny seemed merely to harden.
Only the merest flicker of the folded eyelids over the greenish eyes of
her visitor answered the challenge. He stood small and black, peeping
fixedly out of the window at the sunflecked laurels.
‘Last night,’ he said slowly, ‘when I said good-bye to your husband, on
the tip of my tongue were the words I have used, in season and out of
season, for nearly forty-five years—“God knows best.” Well, my dear
lady, a sense of humour, a sense of reverence, or perhaps even a taint
of scepticism—call it what you will—just intercepted them. Oh no, not
any of these, my child; just pity, overwhelming pity. God does know
best; but in a matter like this it is not even my place to say so. It
would be good for none of us to endanger our souls even with _verbal_
cant. Now, if, do you think, I had just five minutes’ talk—five
minutes; would it disquiet him?’
Only by an almost undignified haste, for the vicar was remarkably
agile, Sheila managed to unlock the bedroom door without apparently his
perceiving it, and with a warning finger she preceded him into the
great bedroom. ‘Oh, yes, yes,’ he was whispering to himself;
‘alone—well, well!’ He hung his hat on his umbrella and leaned it in a
corner, and then he turned.
‘I don’t think, you know, an old friend does him any wrong; but last
night I had no real oppor—’ He firmly adjusted his spectacles, and
looked long into the dark, dispassioned face.
‘H’m!’ he said, and fidgeted, and peered again. Mrs Lawford watched him
keenly.
‘Do you still—’ she began.
But at the same moment he too broke silence, suddenly stepping back
with the innocent remark, ‘Has he—has he asked for anything?’
‘Only for Quain.’
‘“Quain”?’
‘The medical Dictionary.’
‘Oh, yes; bless me; of course.... A calm, complete sleep of utter
prostration—utter nervous prostration. And can one wonder? Poor fellow,
poor fellow!’ He walked to the window and peered between the blinds.
‘Sparrows, sunshine—yes, and here’s the postman,’ he said, as if to
himself. Then he turned sharply round, with mind made up.
‘Now, do you leave me here,’ he said. ‘Take half an hour’s quiet rest.
He will be glad of a dull old fellow like me when he wakes. And as for
my pretty bride, if I miss the train, she must wait till the next. Good
discipline, my dear. Oh, dear me! _I_ don’t change. What a precious
experience now this would have been for a tottery, talkative, owlish
old parochial creature like me. But there, there. Light words make
heavy hearts, I see. I shall be quite comfortable. No, no, I
breakfasted at home. There’s hat and umbrella; at 9.3 I can fly.’
Mrs Lawford thanked him mutely. He smilingly but firmly bowed her out
and closed the door.
But eyes and brain had been very busy. He had looked at the gutted
candle; at the tinted bland portrait on the dressing-table; at the
chair drawn-up; at the boots; and now again he turned almost with a
groan towards the sleeper. Then he took out an envelope, on which he
had jotted various memoranda, and waited awhile. Minutes passed and at
last the sleeper faintly stirred, muttering.
Mr Bethany stooped quickly. ‘What is it, what is it?’ he whispered.
Lawford sighed. ‘I was only dreaming, Sheila,’ he said, and softly,
peacefully opened his eyes. ‘I dreamed I was in the—’ His lids
narrowed, his dark eyes fixed themselves on the anxious spectacled face
bending over him. ‘Mr Bethany! Where? What’s wrong?’
His friend put out his hand. ‘There, there,’ he said soothingly, ‘do
not be disturbed; do not disquiet yourself.’
Lawford struggled up. Slowly, painfully consciousness returned to him.
He glanced furtively round the room, at his clothes, slinkingly at the
vicar; licked his lips; flushed with extraordinary rapidity; and
suddenly burst into tears.
Mr Bethany sat without movement, waiting till he should have spent
himself. ‘Now, Lawford,’ he said gently, ‘compose yourself, old friend.
We must face the music—like men.’ He went to the window, drew up the
blind, peeped out, and took off his spectacles.
‘The first thing to be done,’ he said, returning briskly to his chair,
‘is to send for Simon. Now, does Simon know you _well?_’ Lawford shook
his head. ‘Would he recognise you?... I mean...’
‘I have only met him once—in the evening.’
‘Good; let him come immediately, then. Tell him just the facts. If I am
not mistaken, he will pooh-pooh the whole thing; tell you to keep
quiet, not to worry, and so on. My dear fellow, if we realised, say,
typhoid, who’d dare to face it? That will give us time; to wait a
while, to recover our breath, to see what happens next. And if—as I
don’t believe for a moment—Why, in that case I heard the other day of a
most excellent man—Grosser, of Wimpole Street; nerves. He would be
absorbed. He’ll bottle you in spirit, Lawford. We’ll have him down
quietly. You see? But there won’t be any necessity. Oh no. By then
light will have come. We shall remember. What I mean is this.’ He
crossed his legs and pushed out his lips. ‘We are on quaky ground; and
it’s absolutely essential that you keep cool, and trust. I am yours,
heart and soul—you know that. I own frankly, at first I was shaken. And
I have, I confess, been very cunning. But first, faith, then evidence
to bolster it up. The faith was absolute’—he placed one firm hand on
Lawford’s knee—‘why, I cannot explain; but it was. The evidence is
convincing. But there are others to think of. The shock, the
incredibleness, the consequences; we must not scan too closely. Think
_with_; never against: and bang go all the arguments. Your wife, poor
dear, believes; but of course, of course, she is horribly—’ he broke
off; ‘of course she is _shaken_, you old simpleton! Time will heal all
that. Time will wear out the mask. Time will tire out this detestable
physical witchcraft. The mind, the self’s the thing. Old fogey though I
may seem for saying it—that must be kept unsmirched. We won’t go
wearily over the painful subject again. You told me last night, dear
old friend, that you were absolutely alone at Widderstone. That is
enough. But here we have visible facts, tangible effects, and there
must have been a definite reason and a cause for them. I believe in the
devil, in the Powers of Darkness, Lawford, as firmly as I believe he
and they are powerless—in the long run. They—what shall we say?—have
surrendered their intrinsicality. You can just go through evil, as you
can go through a sewer, and come out on the other side too. A loathsome
process too. But there—we are not speaking of any such monstrosities,
and even if we were, you and I with God’s help would just tire them
out. And that ally gone, our poor dear old Mrs Grundy will at once
capitulate. Eh? Eh?’
Through all this long and arduous harangue, consciousness, like the
gradual light of dawn, had been flooding that other brain. And the face
that now confronted Mr Bethany, though with his feeble unaided sight he
could only very obscurely discern it, was vigilant and keen, in every
sharp-cut hungry feature.
A rather prolonged silence followed, the visitor peering mutely. The
black eyes nearly closed, the face turned slowly towards the window,
saw burnt-out candle, comprehensive glass.
‘Yes, yes.’ he said; ‘I’ll send for Simon at once.’
‘Good,’ said Mr Bethany, and more doubtfully repeated ‘good.’ ‘Now
there’s only one thing left,’ he went on cheerfully. ‘I have jotted
down a few test questions here; they are questions no one on this earth
could answer but you, Lawford. They are merely for external proofs. You
won’t, you can’t, mistake my motive. We cannot foretell or foresee what
need may arise for just such jog-trot primitive evidence. I propose
that you now answer them here, in writing.’
Lawford stood up and walked to the looking-glass, and paused. He put
his hand to his head, ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘of course; it’s a rattling good
move. I’m not quite awake; myself, I mean. I’ll do it now.’ He took out
a pencil case and tore another leaf from his pocket-book. ‘What are
they?’
Mr Bethany rang the bell. Sheila herself answered it. She stood on the
threshold and looked across through a shaft of autumnal sunshine at her
husband, and her husband with a quiet strange smile looked across
through the sunshine at his wife. Mr Bethany waited in vain.
‘I am just going to put the arch-impostor through his credentials,’ he
said tartly. ‘Now then, Lawford!’ He read out the questions, one by
one, from his crafty little list, pursing his lips between each; and
one by one, Lawford, seated at the dressing-table, fluently scribbled
his answers. Then question and answer were rigorously compared by Mr
Bethany, with small white head bent close and spectacles poised upon
the powerful nose, and signed and dated, and passed to Mrs Lawford
without a word.
Mrs Lawford read question and answer where she stood, in complete
silence. She looked up. ‘Many of these questions I don’t know the
answers to myself,’ she said.
‘It is immaterial,’ said Mr Bethany.
‘One answer is—is inaccurate. ‘Yes, yes, quite so: due to a mistake in
a letter from myself.’
Mrs Lawford read quietly on, folded the papers, and held them out
between finger and thumb. ‘The—handwriting...’ she remarked very
softly.
‘Wonderful, isn’t it?’ said Mr Bethany warmly; ‘all the general look
and run of the thing different, but every real essential feature
unchanged. Now into the envelope. And now a little wax?’
Mrs Lawford stood waiting. ‘There’s a green piece of sealing-wax,’
almost drawled the quiet voice, ‘in the top right drawer of the nest in
the study, which old James gave me the Christmas before last.’ He
glanced with lowered eyelids at his wife’s flushed cheek. Their eyes
met.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
When she returned the vicar was sitting in a chair, leaning his chin on
the knobbed handle of his umbrella. He rose and lit a taper for her
with a match from a little green pot on the table. And Mrs Lawford,
with trembling fingers, sealed the letter, as he directed, with his own
seal.
‘There!’ he said triumphantly, ‘how many more such brilliant lawyers, I
wonder, lie dormant in the Church? And who shall keep this?... Why, all
three, of course.’ He went on without pausing. ‘Some little drawer now,
secret and undetectable, with a lock.’ Just such a little drawer that
locked itself with a spring lay by chance in the looking-glass. There
the letter was hidden. And Mr Bethany looked at his watch. ‘Nineteen
minutes,’ he said. ‘The next thing, my dear child—we’re getting on
swimmingly—and it’s astonishing how things are simplified by mere
use—the next thing is to send for Simon.’
Sheila took a deep breath, but did not look up. ‘I am entirely in your
hands,’ she replied.
‘So be it,’ said he crisply. ‘Get to bed, Lawford; it’s better so. And
I’ll look in on my way back from Witchett. I came, my dear fellow, in
gloomy disturbance of mind. It was getting up too early; it fogs old
brains. Good-bye, good-bye.’
He squeezed Lawford’s hand. Then, with umbrella under his arm, his hat
on his head, his spectacles readjusted, he hurried out of the room. Mrs
Lawford followed him. For a few minutes Lawford sat motionless, with
head bent a little, and eyes restlessly scanning the door. Then he rose
abruptly, and in a quarter of an hour was in bed, alone with his slow
thoughts: while a basin of cornflour stood untasted on a little table
at his bedside, and a cheerful fire burned in the best visitors’ room’s
tiny grate.
At half-past eleven Dr Simon entered this soundless seclusion. He sat
down beside Lawford, and took temperature and pulse. Then he half
closed his lids, and scanned his patient out of an unusually dark,
un-English face, with straight black hair, and listened attentively to
his rather incoherent story. It was a story very much modified and
rounded off. Nor did Lawford draw Dr Simon’s attention to the portrait
now smiling conventionally above their heads from the wall over the
fireplace.
‘It was rather bleak—the wind; and, I think, perhaps, I had had a touch
of influenza. It was a silly thing to do. But still, Dr Simon, one
doesn’t expect—well, there, I don’t feel the same man—physically. I
really cannot explain how great a change has taken place. And yet I
feel perfectly fit in myself. And if it were not for—for being laughed
at, go back to town, to-day. Why my wife scarcely recognised me.’
Dr Simon continued his scrutiny. Try as he would, Lawford could not
raise his downcast eyes to meet direct the doctor’s polite attention.
‘And what,’ said Dr Simon, ‘what precisely is the nature of the change?
Have you any pain?’
‘No, not the least pain,’ said Lawford; ‘I think, perhaps, or rather my
face _is_ a little shrunken—and yet lengthened; at least it feels so;
and a faint twinge of rheumatism. But my hair—well, I don’t know; it’s
difficult to say one’s self.’ He could get on so very much better, he
thought, if only his mind would be at peace and these preposterous
promptings and voices were still.
Dr Simon faced the window, and drew his hand softly over his head. ‘We
never can be too cautious at a certain age, and especially after
influenza,’ he said. ‘It undermines the whole system, and in particular
the nervous system; leaving the mind the prey of the most melancholy
fancies. I should astound you, Mr Lawford, with the devil influenza
plays.... A slight nervous shock and a chill; quite slight, I hope. A
few days’ rest and plenty of nourishment. There’s nothing; temperature
inconsiderable. All perfectly intelligible. Most certainly reassure
yourself! And as for the change you speak of’—he looked steadily at the
dark face on the pillow and smiled amiably—‘I don’t think we need worry
much about that. It certainly was a bleak wind yesterday—and a
cemetery, my dear sir! It was indiscreet—yes, very.’ He held out his
hand. ‘You must not be alarmed,’ he said, very distinctly with the
merest trace of an accent; ‘air, sunshine, quiet, nourishment;
sleep—that is all. The little window might be a few inches open,
and—and any light reading.’
He opened the door and joined Mrs Lawford on the staircase. He talked
to her quietly over his shoulder all the way downstairs. ‘It was, it
was sporting with Providence—a wind, believe me, nearly due east, in
spite of the warm sunshine.’
‘But the change—the change!’ Mrs Lawford managed to murmur tragically,
as he strode to the door. Dr Simon smiled, and gracefully tapped his
forehead with a red-gloved forefinger.
‘Humour him, humour him,’ he repeated indulgently. ‘Rest and quiet will
soon put that little trouble out of his head. Oh yes, I did notice
it—the set drawn look, and the droop: quite so. Good morning.’
Mrs Lawford gently closed the door after him. A glimpse of Ada,
crossing from room to room, suggested a precaution. She called out in
her clearest notes. ‘If Dr Ferguson should call while I am out, Ada,
will you please tell him that Dr Simon regretted that he was unable to
wait? Thank you.’ She paused with hand on the balusters, then slowly
ascended the stairs. Her husband’s face was turned to the ceiling, his
hands clasped above his head. She took up her stand by the fireplace,
resting one silk-slippered foot on the fender. ‘Dr Simon is
reassuring,’ she said, ‘but I do hope, Arthur, you will follow his
advice. He looks a fairly clever man.... But with a big practice.... Do
you think, dear, he quite realised the extent of the—the change?’
‘I told him what happened,’ said her husband’s voice out of the
bed-clothes.
‘Yes, yes, I know,’ said Sheila soothingly; ‘but we must remember he is
comparatively a stranger. He would not detect—’
‘What did he tell you?’ asked the voice.
Mrs Lawford deliberately considered. If only he would always thus keep
his face concealed, how much easier it would be to discuss matters
rationally. ‘You see, dear,’ she said softly, ‘I know, of course,
nothing about the nerves; but personally, I think his suggestion
absurd. No mere fancy, surely, can make a lasting alteration in one’s
face. And your hair—I don’t want to say anything that may seem
unkind—but isn’t it really quite a distinct shade darker, Arthur?’
‘Any great strain will change the colour of a man’s hair,’ said Lawford
stolidly; ‘at any rate, to white. Why, I read once of a fellow in
India, a Hindoo, or something, who—’
‘But have you _had_ any intense strain, or anxiety?’ broke in Sheila.
‘You might, at least, have confided in me; that is, unless—But there,
don’t you think really, Arthur, it would be much more satisfactory in
every way if we had further advice at once? Alice will be home next
week. To-morrow is the Harvest Festival, and next week, of course, the
Dedication; and, in any case, the Bazaar is out of the question. They
will have to find another stall-holder. We must do our utmost to avoid
comment or scandal. Every minute must help to—to fix a thing like that.
I own even now I cannot realise what this awful calamity means. It’s
useless to brood on it. We must, as the poor dear old vicar said only
last night, keep our heads clear. But I am sure Dr Simon was under a
misapprehension. If, now, it was explained to him, a little more fully,
Arthur—a photograph. Oh, anything on earth but this dreadful wearing
uncertainty and suspense! Besides ...is Simon quite an English name?’
Lawford drew further into his pillow. ‘Do as you think best, Sheila,’
he said. ‘For my own part, I believe it may be as he suggests—partly an
illusion, a touch of nervous breakdown. It simply can’t be as bad as I
think it is. If it were, you would not be here talking like this; and
Bethany wouldn’t have believed a word I said. Whatever it is, it’s no
good crying it on the housetops. Give me time, just time. Besides, how
do we know what he really thought? Doctors don’t tell their patients
everything. Give the poor chap a chance, and more so if he is a
foreigner. He’s’—his voice sank almost to a whisper—‘he’s no darker
than this. And do, please, Sheila, take this infernal stuff away, and
let me have something solid. I’m not ill—in that way. All I want is
peace and quiet, time to think. Let me fight it out alone. It’s been
sprung on me. The worst’s not over. But I’ll win through; wait! And if
not—well, you shall not suffer, Sheila. Don’t be afraid. There are
other ways out.’
Sheila broke down. ‘Any one would think to hear you talk, that I was
perfectly heartless. I told Ada to be most careful about the cornflour.
And as for other ways out, it’s a positively wicked thing to say to me
when I’m nearly distracted with trouble and anxiety. What motive could
you have had for loitering in an old cemetery? And in an east wind!
It’s useless for me to remain here, Arthur, to be accused of every
horrible thing that comes into a morbid imagination. I will leave you,
as you suggest, in peace.’
‘One moment, Sheila,’ answered the muffled voice. ‘I have accused you
of nothing. If you knew all; if you could read my thoughts, you would
be surprised, perhaps, at my—But never mind that. On the other hand, I
really do think it would be better for the present to discuss the thing
no more. To-day is Friday. Give this miserable face a week. Talk it
over with Bethany if you like. But I forbid’—he struggled up in bed,
sallow and sinister—‘I flatly forbid, please understand, any other
interference till then. Afterwards you must do exactly as you please.
Send round the Town Crier! But till then, silence!’
Sheila with raised head confronted him. ‘This, then, is your gratitude.
So be it. Silence, no doubt! Until it’s too late to take action. Until
you have wormed your way in, and think you are safe. To have believed!
Where is my husband? that is what I am asking you now. When and how you
have learned his secrets God only knows, and your conscience! But he
always was a simpleton at heart. I warn you, then. Until next Thursday
I consent to say nothing provided you remain quiet; make no
disturbance, no scandal here. The servants and all who inquire shall
simply be told that my husband is confined to his room with—with a
nervous breakdown, as you have yourself so glibly suggested. I am at
your mercy, I own it. The vicar believes your preposterous story—with
his spectacles off. You would convince anybody with the wicked cunning
with which you have cajoled and wheedled him, with which you have
deceived and fooled a foreign doctor. But you will not convince me. You
will not convince Alice. I have friends in the world, though you may
not be aware of it, who will not be quite so apt to believe any
cock-and-bull story you may see fit to invent. That is all I have to
say. To-night I tell the vicar all that I have just told you. And from
this moment, please, we are strangers. I shall come into the room no
more than necessity dictates. On Friday we resume our real parts. My
husband—Arthur—to—to connive at... Phh!’
Rage had transfigured her. She scarcely heard her own words. They
poured out senselessly, monotonously, one calling up another, as if
from the lips of a Cassandra. Lawford sank back into bed, clutching the
sheets with both lean hands. He took a deep breath and shut his mouth.
‘It reminds me, Sheila,’ he began arduously, ‘of our first quarrel
before we were married, the evening after your aunt Rose died at
Llandudno—do you remember? You threw open the window, and I think—I
saved your life.’ A pause followed. Then a queer, almost inarticulate
voice added, ‘At least, I am afraid so.’
A cold and awful quietness fell on Sheila’s heart. She stared fixedly
at the tuft of dark hair, the only visible sign of her husband, on the
pillow. Then, taking up the basin of cold cornflour, she left the room.
In a quarter of an hour she reappeared carrying a tray, with ham and
eggs and coffee and honey invitingly displayed. She laid it down.
‘There is only one other question,’ she said, with perfect
composure—‘that of money. Your signature as it appears on the—the
document drawn up this morning, would, of course, be quite useless on a
cheque. I have taken all the money I could find; it is in safety. You
may, however, conceivably be in need of some yourself; here is five
pounds. I have my own cheque-book, and shall therefore have no need to
consider the question again for—for the present. So far as you are
concerned, I shall be guided solely by Mr Bethany. He will, I do not
doubt, take full responsibility.’
‘And may the Lord have mercy on my soul!’ uttered a stifled, unfamiliar
voice from the bed. Mrs Lawford stooped. ‘Arthur!’ she cried faintly,
‘Arthur!’
Lawford raised himself on his elbow with a sigh that was very near to
being a sob. ‘Oh, Sheila, if you’d only be your real self! What is the
use of all this pretence? Just consider _my_ position a little. The
fear and horror are not all on your side. You called me Arthur even
then. I’d willingly do anything you wish to save you pain; you know
that. Can’t we be friends even in this—this ghastly—Won’t you, Sheila?’
Mrs Lawford drew back, struggling with a doubtful heart.
‘I think,’ she said, ‘it would be better not to discuss that now.’
The rest of the morning Lawford remained in solitude.