The Return Part 10

'I am very sorry, Sheila, to be so childish. But I'm not, say what you like, blind. You ARE pretty: I'd repeat it if I was burning at the stake.'

Sheila lowered her eyes softly on to the rich-toned picture in the gla.s.s. 'Supposing,' she said, watching her lips move, 'supposing--of course, I know you are getting better and all that--but supposing you don't change back as Mr Bethany thinks, what will you do? Honestly, Arthur, when I think over it calmly, the whole tragedy comes back on me with such a force it sweeps me off my feet; I am for the moment scarcely my own mistress. What would you do?'

'I think, Sheila,' replied a low, infinitely weary voice, 'I think I should marry again.' It was the same wavering, faintly ironical voice that had slightly discomposed Dr Simon that same morning.

'"Marry again"!' exclaimed incredulously the full lips in the looking-gla.s.s. 'Who?'

'YOU, dear!'

Sheila turned softly round, conscious in a most humiliating manner that she had ever so little flushed.

Her husband was pouring out his tea, unaware, apparently, of her change of position. She watched him curiously. In spite of all her reason, of her absolute certainty, she wondered even again for a moment if this really could be Arthur. And for the first time she realised the power and mastery of that eager and far too hungry face. Her mind seemed to pause, fluttering in air, like a bird in the wind. She hastened rather unsteadily to the door.

'Will you want anything more, do you think, for an hour?' she asked.

Her husband looked up over his little table. 'Is Alice going with you?'

'Oh yes; poor child, she looks so pale and miserable. We are going to Mrs Sherwin's, and then on to Church. You will lock your door?'

'Yes, I will lock my door.'

'And I do hope Arthur--nothing rash!'

A change, that seemed almost the effect of actual shadow, came over his face. 'I wish you could stay with me,' he said slowly. 'I don't think you have any idea what--what I go through.'

It was as if a child had asked on the verge of terror for a candle in the dark. But an hour's terror is better than a lifetime of timidity.

Sheila sighed.

'I think,' she said, 'I too might say that. But there; giving way will do nothing for either of us. I shall be gone only for an hour, or two at the most. And I told Mr Bethany I should have to come out before the sermon: it's only Mr Craik.'

'But why Mrs Sherwin? She'd worm a secret out of one's grave.'

'It's useless to discuss that, Arthur; you have always consistently disliked my friends. It's scarcely likely that you would find any improvement in them now.'

'Oh, well--' he began. But the door was already closed.

'Sheila!' he called in a burst of anger.

'Well, Arthur?'

'You have taken my latchkey.'

Sheila came hastily in again. 'Your latchkey?'

'I am going out.'

'"Going out!"--you will not be so mad, so criminal; and after your promise!'

He stood up. 'It is useless to argue. If I do not go out, I shall certainly go mad. As for criminal--why, that's a woman's word. Who on earth is to know me?'

'It is of no consequence, then, that the servants are already gossiping about this impossible Dr Ferguson; that you are certain to be seen either going or returning; that Alice is bound to discover that you are well enough to go out, and yet not even enough to say good-night to your own daughter--oh, it's monstrous, it's a frantic, a heartless thing to do!' Her voice vaguely suggested tears.

Lawford eyed her coldly and stubbornly--thinking of the empty room he would leave awaiting his return, its lamp burning, its fire-flames shining. It was almost a physical discomfort, this longing unspeakable for the twilight, the green secrecy and the silence of the graves. 'Keep them out of the way,' he said in a low voice; 'it will be dark when I come in.' His hardened face lit up. 'It's useless to attempt to dissuade me.'

'Why must you always be hurting me? why do you seem to delight in trying to estrange me?' Husband and wife faced each other across the clear-lit room. He did not answer.

'For the last time,' she said in a quiet, hard voice, 'I ask you not to go.'

He shrugged his shoulders. 'Ask me not to come back,' he said; 'that's nearer your hope.' He turned his face to the fire. Without moving he heard her go out, return, pause, and go out again. And when he deliberately wheeled round in his chair the little key lay conspicuous there on the counterpane.

CHAPTER NINE

The last light of sunset lay in the west; and a sullen wrack of cloud was mounting into the windless sky when Lawford entered the country graveyard again by its dark weather-worn lych-gate. The old stone church with its square tower stood amid trees, its eastern window faintly aglow with crimson and purple. He could hear a steady, rather nasal voice through its open lattices. But the stooping stones and the cypresses were out of sight of its porch. He would not be seen down there. He paused a moment, however; his hat was drawn down over his eyes; he was shivering. Far over the harvest fields showed a growing pallor in the solitary seat beneath the cypresses. He stood hesitating, gazing steadily and yet half vacantly at the motionless figure, and in a while a face was lifted in his direction, and undisconcerted eyes calmly surveyed him.

'I am afraid,' called Lawford rather nervously--'I hope I am not intruding?'

'Not at all, not at all,' said the stranger. 'I have no privileges here; at least as yet.'

Lawford again hesitated, then slowly advanced. 'It's astonishingly quiet and beautiful,' he said.

The stranger turned his head to glance over the fields. 'Yes, it is, very,' he replied. There was the faintest accent, a little drawl of unfriendliness in the remark.

'You often sit here?' Lawford persisted.

The stranger raised his eyebrows. 'Oh yes, often.' He smiled. 'It is my own modest fashion of attending divine service. The congregation is rapt.'

'My visits,' said Lawford, 'have been very few--in fact, so far as I know, I have only once been here before.'

'I envy you the novelty.' There was again the same faint unmistakable antagonism in voice and att.i.tude; and yet so deep was the relief in talking to a fellow creature who hadn't the least suspicion of anything unusual in his appearance that Lawford was extremely disinclined to turn back. He made another effort--for conversation with strangers had always been a difficulty to him--and advanced towards the seat. 'You mustn't please let me intrude upon you,' he said, 'but really I am very interested in this queer old place. Perhaps you would tell me something of its history?' He sat down. His companion moved slowly to the other side of the broken gravestone.

'To tell you the truth,' he replied, picking his way as it were from word to word, 'it's "history," as people call it, does not interest me in the least. After all, it's not when a thing is, but what it is, that much matters. What this is'--he glanced, with head bent, across the shadowy stones, 'is pretty evident. Of course, age has its charms.'

'And is this very old?'

'Oh yes, it's old right enough, as things go; but even age, perhaps, is mainly an affair of the imagination. There's a tombstone near that little old hawthorn, and there are two others side by side under the wall, still even legibly late seventeenth century. That's pretty good weathering.' He smiled faintly. 'Of course, the church itself is centuries older, drenched with age. But she's still sleep-walking while these old tombstones dream. Glow-worms and crickets are not such bad bedfellows.'

'What interested me most, I think,' said Lawford haltingly, 'was this.'

He pointed with his stick to the grave at his feet.

'Ah, yes, Sabathier's,' said the stranger; 'I know his peculiar history almost by heart.'

Lawford found himself staring with unusual concentration into the rather long and pale face. 'Not, I suppose,' he resumed faintly--'not, I suppose, beyond what's there.'

His companion leant his hand on the old stooping tombstone. 'Well, you know, there's a good deal there'--he stooped over--'if you read between the lines. Even if you don't.'

'A suicide,' said Lawford, under his breath.