The Helpmate Part 85

She put her hand up to hide her face. He saw that in some way incomprehensible to him, so far from shielding her, he had struck a blow.

"Dr. Gardner told you that much," said he. He felt easier, somehow, in halving the responsibility with Gardner.

"Yes. He told me that. But he had not seen him since October. You saw him on Friday, the day I came home."

Hannay was confirmed in his suspicion that on Friday there had been a scene. He now saw that Mrs. Majendie was tortured by the remembrance of her part in it.

"Oh well," he said consolingly. "He hadn't been himself for a long time before that."

"I know. I know. That only makes it worse."

She wept slowly, silently, then stopped suddenly and held herself in a restraint that was ten times more pitiful to see. Hannay was unspeakably distressed.

"Perhaps," said he, "if you could tell me what's on your mind, I might be able to relieve you."

She shook her head.

"Come," he said kindly, "what is it, really? What do you imagine makes it worse?"

"I said something to him that I didn't mean."

"Of course you did," said Hannay, smiling cheerfully. "We all say things to each other that we don't mean. That wouldn't hurt him."

"But it did. I told him he was responsible for Peggy's death. I didn't know what I was saying. I let him think he killed her."

"He wouldn't think it."

"He did. There was nothing else he could think. If he dies I shall have killed him."

"You will have done nothing of the sort. He wouldn't think twice about what a woman said in her anger or her grief. He wouldn't believe it. He's got too much sense. You can put that idea out of your head for ever."

"I cannot put it out. I had to tell you--lest you should think--"

"Lest I should think--what?"

"That it was something else that caused his illness."

"But, my dear lady--it _was_ something else. I haven't a doubt about it."

"I know what you mean," she said quickly. "He had been drinking--poor dear."

"How do you know that?"

"The doctor asked me. He asked me if he had been in the habit of taking too much."

Hannay heaved a deep sigh of discomfort and disappointment.

"It's no good," said she, "trying to keep things from me. And there's another thing that I must know."

"You're distressing yourself most needlessly. There is nothing more to know."

"I know that woman was here. I do not know whether he came here to meet her."

"Ah well--that I can a.s.sure you he did not."

"Still--he must have met her. She was here."

"How do you know that she was here?"

"You saw her yourself, coming out of the hotel. You were horrified, and you pulled me back so that I shouldn't see her."

"There's nothing in that, nothing whatever."

"If you'd seen your own face, Mr. Hannay, you would have said there was everything in it."

"My face, dear Mrs. Majendie, does not prove that they met. Or that there was any reason why they shouldn't meet. It only proves my fear lest Lady Cayley should stop and speak to you. A thing she wouldn't be very likely to do if they had met--as you suppose."

"There is nothing that woman wouldn't do."

"She wouldn't do that. She wouldn't do that."

"I don't know."

"No. You don't know. So you're bound to give her the benefit of the doubt. I advise you to do it. For your own peace of mind's sake. And for your husband's sake."

"It was for his sake that I asked you for the truth. Because--"

"You wanted me to clear him?"

"Yes. Or to tell me if there is anything I should forgive."

"I can a.s.sure you he didn't come here to see Sarah Cayley. As to forgiveness--you haven't got to forgive him that; and if you only understood, you'd find that there was precious little you ever had to forgive."

"If I only understood. You think I don't understand, even yet?"

"I'm sure you don't. You never did."

"I would give everything if I could understand now."

"Yes, if you could. But can you?"

"I've tried very hard. I've prayed to G.o.d to make me understand."

Poor Hannay was embarra.s.sed at the name of G.o.d. He fell to contemplating his waistcoat b.u.t.tons in profound abstraction for a while. Then he spoke.

"Look here, Mrs. Majendie. Poor Walter always said you were much too good for him. If you'll pardon my saying so, I never believed that until now.

Now, upon my soul, I do believe it. And I believe that's where the trouble's been all along. There are things about a man that a woman like you cannot understand. She doesn't try to understand them. She doesn't want to. She'd die rather than know. So--well--the whole thing's wrapped up in mystery, and she thinks it's something awful and iniquitous, something incomprehensible."

"Yes. If she thinks about it at all."