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 goodbye 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
