“At last, at last, dear,” she said; “I have been waiting such a time. But we mustn’t talk much. Mother is waiting up, reading.”
Faintly through the close-shut door came the sound of that distant expressionless voice monotonously rising and falling.
“Why didn’t you tell me, dear?” Alice still sleepily whispered. “Would I have asked a single question? How could I? Oh, if you had only trusted me!”
“But the change—the change, Alice! You must have seen that. You spoke to me, you did think I was only a stranger; and even when you knew, it was only fear on your face, dearest, and aversion; and you turned to your mother first. Don’t think, Alice, that I am … God only knows—I’m not complaining. But truth is best whatever it is. I do feel that. You mustn’t be afraid of hurting me, my dear.”
Her very hands seemed to quicken in his as now, with sleep quite gone, the fret of memory returned, and she must reassure both herself and him. “But you see, dear, mother had told me that you—besides, I did know you at once, really; quite inside, you know, deep down. I know I was perplexed; I didn’t understand; but that was all. Why, even when you came up in the dark, and we talked—if you only knew how miserable I had been—though I knew even then there was something different, still I was not a bit afraid. Was I? And shouldn’t I have been afraid, horribly afraid, if you had not been you?” She repressed a little shudder, and clasped his hand more closely. “Don’t let us say anything more about it,” she implored him; “we are just together again, you and I; that is all that matters.” But her words were like brave soldiers who have fought their way through an ambuscade but have left all confidence behind them.
Lawford listened; and that was enough just now—that she still, in spite of doubt, believed in him, and thought and cared for him. He was too tired to have refused the least kindness. He made no answer, but leant his head on the cool, slender fingers in gratitude and peace. And, just as he was, he almost instantly fell asleep. He woke in the darkness to find himself alone. He groped his way heavily to the door and turned the handle. But now it was really locked. Energy failed him. “I suppose—Sheila …” he muttered.
XIV
Sheila, calm, alert, reserved, was sitting at the open window when he awoke again. His breakfast tray stood on a little table beside the bed. He raised himself on his elbow and looked at his wife. The morning light shone full on her features as she turned quickly at sound of his stirring.
“You have slept late,” she said, in a low, mellow voice.
“Have I, Sheila? I suppose I was tired out. It is very kind of you to have got everything ready like this.”
“I am afraid, Arthur, I was thinking rather of the maids. I like to inconvenience them as little as possible; in their usual routine, I mean. How are you feeling, do you think, this morning?”
“I—I haven’t seen the glass, Sheila.”
She paused to place a little pencil tick at the foot of the page of her butcher’s book. “And did you—did you try?”
“Did I try? Try what?”
“I understood,” she said, turning slowly in her chair, “you gave me to understand that you went out with the specific intention of trying to regain. … But there, forgive me, Arthur; I think I must be getting a little bit hardened to the position, so far at least as any hope is in my mind of rather amateurish experiments being of much help. I may seem unsympathetic in saying frankly what I feel. But amateurish or no, you are curiously erratic. Why, if you really were the Dr. Ferguson whose part you play so admirably you could scarcely spend a more active life.”
“All you mean, Sheila, I suppose, is that I have failed.”
“ ‘Failed’ did not enter my mind. I thought, looking at you just now in your clothes on the bed, one might for the moment be deceived into thinking there was a slight—quite the slightest improvement. There was not quite that”—she hovered for the right word—“that tenseness. Whether or not, whether you desired any such change or didn’t, I should have supposed in any case it would have been better to act as far as possible like any ordinary person. You were certainly in an extraordinarily sound sleep. I was almost alarmed; until I remembered that it was a little after two when I looked up from reading aloud to keep myself awake and discovered that you had only just come home. I had no fire. You know how easily late hours bring on my headaches; a little thought might possibly have suggested that I should be anxious to hear. But no; it seems I cannot profit by experience, Arthur. And even now you have not answered surely a very natural question. You do not recollect, perhaps, exactly what did happen last night? Did you go in the direction even of Widderstone?”
“Yes, Sheila, I went to Widderstone.”
“It was of course absurd to suppose that sitting on a seat beside the broken-down grave of a suicide would have the slightest effect on one’s—one’s physical condition; though possibly it might affect one’s brain. It would mine; I am at least certain of that. It was your own prescription, however; and it merely occurred to me to inquire whether the actual experience has not brought you round to my own opinion.”
“Yes, I think it has,” Lawford answered calmly. “But I don’t quite see what suicide has got to do with it; unless—You know Widderstone, then, Sheila?”
“I drove there last Saturday afternoon.”
“For prayer or praise?” Although Lawford had not actually raised his head, he became conscious rather
