And a voice called softly at the door, ‘Mother, are you there? Is
father awake? May I come in?’

In a flash the memory returned to her; twenty-four hours ago she was
asking that very question of this unspeakable figure that sat
hunched-up before her. ‘One moment, dear,’ she called. And added in a very low voice, ‘Come
here!’

Lawford looked up. ‘What?’ he said. ‘Perhaps, perhaps,’ she whispered, ‘it isn’t quite so bad.’

‘For mercy’s sake, Sheila,’ he said, ‘don’t torture me; tell the poor
child to go away.’

She paused. ‘Are you there, Alice? Would you mind, father says, waiting
a little? He is so very tired.’

‘Too tired to.... Oh, very well, mother.’

Mrs Lawford opened the door, and called after her, ‘Is Jimmie gone?’

‘Oh, yes, hours.’

‘Where did you meet?’

‘I couldn’t get a carriage at the station. He carried my dressing-bag;
I begged him not to. The other’s coming on. You know what Jimmie is. How very, very lucky I _did_ come home. I don’t know what made me; just
an impulse; they did laugh at me so. Father dear—do speak to me; how
are you now?’

Lawford opened his mouth, gulped, and shook his head. ‘Ssh, dear!’ whispered Sheila, ‘I think he has fallen asleep. I will be
down in a minute.’ Mrs Lawford was about to close the door when Ada
appeared. ‘If you please, ma’am,’ she said, ‘I have been waiting, as you told me,
to let Dr Ferguson out, but it’s nearly seven now; and the table’s not
laid yet.’

‘I really should have thought, Ada,’ Sheila began, then caught back the
angry words, and turned and looked over her shoulder into the room. ‘Do
you think you will need anything more, Dr Ferguson?’ she asked in a
sepulchral voice. Again Lawford’s lips moved; again he shook his head. ‘One moment, Ada,’ she said closing the door. ‘Some more medicine—what
medicine? Quick! She mustn’t suspect.’

‘“What medicine?”’ repeated Lawford stolidly. ‘Oh, vexing, vexing; don’t you _see_ we must send her out? Don’t you
see? What was it you sent to Critchett’s for last night? Tell him
that’s gone: we want more of _that_.’

Lawford stared heavily. Oh, yes, yes,’ he said thickly, ‘more of
that....’

Sheila, with a shrug of extreme distaste and vexation, hastily opened
the door. ‘Dr Ferguson wants a further supply of the drug which Mr
Critchett made up for Mr Lawford yesterday evening. You had better go
at once, Ada, and please make as much haste as you possibly can.’

‘I say, I say,’ began Lawford; but it was too late, the door was shut. ‘How I detest this wretched falsehood and subterfuge. What could have
induced you....?’

‘Yes,’ said her husband, ‘what! I think I’ll be getting to bed again,
Sheila; I forgot I had been ill. And now I do really feel very tired. But I should like to feel—in spite of this hideous—I should like to
feel we are friends, Sheila.’

Sheila almost imperceptibly shuddered, crossed the room, and faced the
still, almost lifeless mask. ‘I spoke,’ she said, in a low, cold,
difficult voice—‘I spoke in a temper this morning. You must try to
understand what a shock it has been to me. Now, I own it frankly, I
know you are—Arthur. But God only knows how it frightens me,
and—and—horrifies me.’ She shut her eyes beneath her veil. They waited
on in silence a while. ‘Poor boy!’ she said at last, lightly touching the loose sleeve; ‘be
brave; it will all come right, soon. Meanwhile, for Alice’s sake, if
not for mine, don’t give way to—to caprices, and all that. Keep quietly
here, Arthur. And—and forgive my impatience.’

He put out his hand as if to touch her. ‘Forgive you!’ he said humbly,
pushing it stubbornly back into his pocket again. ‘Oh, Sheila, the
forgiveness is all on your side. You know _I_ have nothing to forgive.’
A long silence fell between them. ‘Then, to-night,’ at last began Sheila wearily, drawing back, ‘we say
nothing to Alice, except that you are too tired—just nervous
prostration—to see her. What we should do without this influenza, I
cannot conceive. Mr Bethany will probably look in on his way home; and
then we can talk it over—we can talk it over again. So long as you are
like this, yourself, in mind, why I—What is it now?’ she broke off
querulously. ‘If you please, ma’am, Mr Critchett says he doesn’t know Dr Ferguson,
his name’s not in the Directory, and there must be something wrong with
the message, and he’s sorry, but he must have it in writing because
there was more even in the first packet than he ought by rights to
send. What shall I do, if you please?’

Still looking at her husband. Sheila listened quietly to the end, and
then, as if in inarticulate disdain, she deliberately shrugged her
shoulders, and went out to play her part unaided. CHAPTER SEVEN


Her husband turned wearily once more, and drawing up a chair sat down
in front of the cold grate. He realised that Sheila thought him as much
of a fool now as she had for the moment thought him an impostor, or
something worse, the night before. That was at least something gained. He realised, too, in a vague way that the exuberance of mind that had
practically invented Dr Ferguson, and outraged Miss Sinnet, had quite
suddenly flickered out. It was astonishing, he thought, with gaze fixed
innocently on the black coals, that he should ever have done such
things. He detested that kind of ‘rot’; that jaunty theatrical pose so
many men prided their jackdaw brains on. And he sat quite still, like a cat at a cranny, listening, as it were,
for the faintest remotest stir that might hint at any return of
this—activity. It was the first really sane moment he had had since the
‘change.’ Whatever it was that had happened at Widderstone was now
distinctly weakening in effect. Why, now, perhaps? He stole a thievish
look over his shoulder at the glass, and cautiously drew finger and
thumb down that beaked nose. Then he really quietly smiled, a smile he
felt this abominable facial caricature was quite unused to, the
superior Lawford smile of guileless contempt for the fanatical, the
fantastic, and the bizarre: _He_ wouldn’t have sat with his feet on the
fender before a burnt-out fire. And the animosity of that ‘he,’ uttered only just under his breath,
surprised even himself. It actually did seem as if there were a chance;
if only he kept cool and collected. If the whole mind of a man was bent
on being one thing, surely no power on earth, certainly not on earth,
could for long compel him to look another, any more (followed the
resplendent thought) than vice versa. That, in fact, was the trick that had been in fitful fashion played him
since yesterday. Obviously, and apart altogether from his promise to
Sheila, the best possible thing he could do would be to walk quietly
over to Widderstone to-morrow and like a child that has lost a penny,
just make the attempt to reverse the process: look at the graves, read
the inscriptions on the weather-beaten stones, compose himself once
more to sleep on the little seat.