Winnie was gone; of that they could be sure now. They had waited a week in suspense; then they had begun to advertise for her. Discreet little advertisements in the personal columns of the papers—“Winnie. Come back to 53. Everything forgiven. Father and Mother.” That was the most they could do. For a brief half-second while they had been debating what to do there had arisen a hint that they might call in the police, but it vanished at once like a breath of cold air, leaving them looking dumbly at each other without meeting each other’s eyes.
Poor Annie spent anxious hours wondering what had happened to her daughter. There was only one thing that she thought possible, and that was that she was leading “a life of shame” with one or other of the finely-dressed men she knew. At this late period Annie remembered the flocks of men who had hovered—and more than hovered—about them during those days at the Grand Pavilion Hotel. She was sure that it was this that had happened. Neither she nor her husband knew that Winnie had had all that money with her when she left; nor, thinking the worst as they inevitably did, did they give her credit for her coolness of head that she could summon to her aid if necessary. Annie Marble thought she had driven her daughter into prostitution. It was the bitterest drop she had to swallow.
It was spring, and drifting through the air came the plague. Perhaps it was the selfsame plague that had swept across England during the last years of the reign of Edward III; certainly the same plague that had killed its thousands in war-torn France in 1814, and claimed the life of an empress; the same plague that had decimated Europe the last spring of the war, taking more victims than had the war itself; the same plague that, sometimes virulent, sometimes almost negligible, had shown itself every spring since. The disease at which some people still scoff, but which is, nevertheless, deadly: influenza.
It was in the air, and seeking victims. Those who troubled too little about their health; those who were for the moment out of sorts; those who were depressed, or worn with anxiety—they were the victims the plague sought.
And Annie Marble was depressed and worn with anxiety. She was fretting about Winnie, and this was the last straw added to the intolerable burden under which she laboured. Will had returned almost entirely to his old ways; once again he passed his time in the sitting-room, peering drearily through the windows into the backyard. The whisky bottle was continually at his side; the words he had for his wife grew fewer and fewer. Sometimes he could still rouse himself sufficiently to pay her a little attention, and bring a flash of sunshine into her life, but the occasions were rare. Poor Annie!
Then one morning Annie was not well. She had a headache, and she was thirsty. At first she was able to let it pass unheeded; it would go away during the morning, she thought, or at least it would be gone by tomorrow. So she began her day’s work, but when it was half completed she felt that she had to sit and rest for a space. The rest seemed to do her good, and she thought to complete the cure by going out to do her shopping. She put on her coat and hat, but even as she went downstairs dizziness came over her and she was forced to acknowledge herself beaten. With an effort of will she went into the sitting-room, where her husband was staring gloomily through the panes.
“Will,” she said, collapsing into a chair, “I don’t feel very well.”
That roused her husband a little, to ask what he could do, and what was the matter. It ended in Mr. Marble going forth to do the shopping, leaving her to rest. It was tacitly understood between them, before he left her, that she was to rest in the sitting-room, whence she could keep an eye through the windows.
And the next day Annie felt worse than ever. But even in her illness she found something to comfort her. Marble was a little alarmed, and he showed it in the concern he evinced about her. He asked how she was very gently, and he tried to minister to her in a clumsy man’s fashion. Poor Annie was quite fluttered and pleased, despite her sickness, by the attention he paid her. As he guided her to a chair and propped her back with cushions where it hurt, and asked what else he could do, she was almost glad she was ill. For she had refused to stay in bed. That was like her. If she could stand, she would get out of bed. And she could not only stand, but she could walk, when her dizziness permitted it. She was in a high fever, but to that she did not pay much attention. But she agreed, nevertheless, that it might perhaps be advisable that Will should do the shopping that day. He even volunteered that he should, and sallied out, shopping basket in hand, and a little list of things that were needed. He had forgotten one or two items the day before.
While he was gone, Annie sat in the drawing-room. Her mouth was dry, and there was an unpleasant taste in it, and her head felt queer, and there was a strange sort of doubtfulness about things when she looked at them. There were pains in her body and joints, too. But, for all that, she still felt the joy of her husband’s loving attention.
But Will had hardly gone when the postman dropped a letter through the door with his double knock. It was the eleven o’clock postman—he who brought the continental mail. Annie walked weakly to the door and picked up the letter, and went back weakly to the drawing-room. Not until she had sat
