That night, about nine o'clock, Gwenda came for the third time to
Rowcliffe at his house.
She was shown into his study, where Rowcliffe was reading.
Though the servant had prepared him for her, he showed signs of
agitation.
Gwenda's eyes were ominously somber and she had the white face of
a ghost, a face that to Rowcliffe, as he looked at it, recalled the
white face of Alice. He disliked Alice's face, he always had disliked
it, he disliked it more than ever at that moment; yet the sight
of this face that was so like it carried him away in an ecstasy of
tenderness. He adored it because of that likeness, because of all that
the likeness revealed to him and signified. And it increased, quite
unendurably, his agitation.
Gwenda was supernaturally calm.
In another instant the illusion that her presence had given him
passed. He saw what she had come for.
"Has anything gone wrong?" he asked.
She drew in her breath sharply.
"It's Alice."
"Yes, I know it's Alice. _Is_ anything wrong?" he said. "What is it?"
"I don't know. I want you to tell me. That's what I've come for. I'm
frightened."
"D'you mean, is she worse?"
She did not answer him. She looked at him as if she were trying to
read in his eyes something that he was trying not to tell her.
"Yes," he said, "she _is_ worse."
"I know that," she said impatiently. "I can see it. You've got to tell
me more."
"But I _have_ told you. You _know_ I have," he pleaded.
"I know you tried to tell me."
"Didn't I succeed?"
"You told me why she was ill--I know all that----"
"Do sit down." He turned from her and dragged the armchair forward.
"There." He put a cushion at her back. "That's better."
As she obeyed him she kept her eyes on him. The book he had been
reading lay where he had put it down, on the hearthrug at her feet.
Its title, "_État mental des hystériques_;" Janet, stared at him. He
picked it up and flung it out of sight as if it had offended him. With
all his movements her head lifted and turned so that her eyes followed
him.
He sat down and gazed at her quietly.
"Well," he said, "and what didn't I tell you?"
"You didn't tell me how it would end."
He was silent.
"Is that what you told father?"
"Hasn't he said anything?"
"He hasn't said a word. And you went away without saying anything."
"There isn't much to say that you don't know----"
"I know why she was ill. You told me. But I don't know why she's
worse. She _was_ better. She was quite well. She was running about
doing things and looking so pretty--only the other day. And look at
her now."
"It's like that," said Rowcliffe. "It comes and goes."
He said it quietly. But the blood rose into his face and forehead in a
painful flush.
"But why? Why?" she persisted. "It's so horribly sudden."
"It's like that, too," said Rowcliffe.
"If it's like that now what is it going to be? How is it going to end?
That's what you _won't_ tell me."
"It's difficult----" he began.
"I don't care how difficult it is or how you hate it. You've got to."