“I
There was another silence; then she went on in a stronger voice, looking straight at her husband: “And now will you send this man away?”
Amherst glanced at Wyant without moving. “Go,” he said curtly.
Wyant, instead, moved a step nearer. “Just a minute, please. It’s only fair to hear my side. Your wife says there was no hope; yet the day before she…gave the dose, Dr. Garford told her in my presence that Mrs. Amherst might live.”
Again Amherst’s eyes addressed themselves slowly to Justine; and she forced her lips to articulate an answer.
“Dr. Garford said…one could never tell…but I know he didn’t believe in the chance of recovery…no one did.”
“Dr. Garford is dead,” said Wyant grimly.
Amherst strode up to him again. “You scoundrel—leave the house!” he commanded.
But still Wyant sneeringly stood his ground. “Not till I’ve finished. I can’t afford to let myself be kicked out like a dog because I happen to be in the way. Every doctor knows that in cases of spinal lesion recovery is becoming more and more frequent—if the patient survives the third week there’s every reason to hope. Those are the facts as they would appear to any surgeon. If they’re not true, why is Mrs. Amherst afraid of having them stated? Why has she been paying me for nearly a year to keep them quiet?”
“Oh–-” Justine moaned.
“I never thought of talking till luck went against me. Then I asked her for help—and reminded her of certain things. After that she kept me supplied pretty regularly.” He thrust his shaking hand into an inner pocket. “Here are her envelopes…Quebec…Montreal…Saranac…I know just where you went on your honeymoon. She had to write often, because the sums were small. Why did she do it, if she wasn’t afraid? And why did she go upstairs just now to fetch me something? If you don’t believe me, ask her what she’s got in her hand.”
Amherst did not heed this injunction. He stood motionless, gripping the back of a chair, as if his next gesture might be to lift and hurl it at the speaker.
“Ask her–-” Wyant repeated.
Amherst turned his head slowly, and his dull gaze rested on his wife. His face looked years older—lips and eyes moved as heavily as an old man’s.
As he looked at her, Justine came forward without speaking, and laid the little morocco case in his hand. He held it there a moment, as if hardly understanding her action—then he tossed it on the table at his elbow, and walked up to Wyant.
“You hound,” he said—“now go!”
XXXVI
WHEN Wyant had left the room, and the house-door had closed on him, Amherst spoke to his wife.
“Come upstairs,” he said.
Justine followed him, scarcely conscious where she went, but moving already with a lighter tread. Part of her weight of misery had been lifted with Wyant’s going. She had suffered less from the fear of what her husband might think than from the shame of making her avowal in her defamer’s presence. And her faith in Amherst’s comprehension had begun to revive. He had dismissed Wyant with scorn and horror—did not that show that he was on her side already? And how many more arguments she had at her call! Her brain hummed with them as she followed him up the stairs.
In her bedroom he closed the door and stood motionless, the same heavy half-paralyzed look on his face. It frightened her and she went up to him.
“John!” she said timidly.
He put his hand to his head. “Wait a moment–-” he returned; and she waited, her heart slowly sinking again.
The moment over, he seemed to recover his power of movement. He crossed the room and threw himself into the armchair near the hearth.
“Now tell me everything.”
He sat thrown back, his eyes fixed on the fire, and the vertical lines between his brows forming a deep scar in his white face.
Justine moved nearer, and touched his arm beseechingly. “Won’t you look at me?”
He turned his head slowly, as if with an effort, and his eyes rested reluctantly on hers.
“Oh, not like that!” she exclaimed.
He seemed to make a stronger effort at self-control. “Please don’t heed me—but say what there is to say,” he said in a level voice, his gaze on the fire.
She stood before him, her arms hanging down, her clasped fingers twisting restlessly.
“I don’t know that there is much to say—beyond what I’ve told you.”
There was a slight sound in Amherst’s throat, like the ghost of a derisive laugh. After another interval he said: “I wish to hear exactly what happened.”
She seated herself on the edge of a chair near by, bending forward, with hands interlocked and arms extended on her knees—every line reaching out to him, as though her whole slight body were an arrow winged with pleadings. It was a relief to speak at last, even face to face with the stony image that sat in her husband’s place;
