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 of the wonderfully adjusted mass of
hair than of the pained dignity in the face that was now closely
regarding him. ‘I went,’ came the rigidly controlled retort, ‘simply to test an
inconceivable story.’

‘And returned?’

‘Convinced, Arthur, of its inconceivability. But if you would kindly
inform me what precise formula you followed at Widderstone last night,
I would tell you why I think the explanation, or rather your first
account of the matter, is not an explanation of the facts.’

Lawford shot a rather doglike glance over his toast. ‘Danton?’ he said. ‘Candidly, Arthur, Mr Danton doubts the whole story. Your very
conduct—well, it would serve no useful purpose to go into that. Candidly, on the other hand, Mr. Danton did make some extremely helpful
suggestions—basing them, of course, on the _truth_ of your account. He
has seen a good deal of life; and certainly very mysterious things do
occur to quite innocent and well-meaning people without the faintest
shadow of warning, and as Mr. Bethany himself said, evil birds do come
home to roost, and often out of a clear sky, as it were. But there,
every fresh solution that occurs to me only makes the thing more
preposterous, more, I was going to say, disreputable—I mean, of course,
to the outside world. And we have our duties to perform to them too, I
suppose. Why, what can we say? What plausible account of ourselves have
we? We shall never be able to look anybody in the face again. I can
only—I am compelled to believe that God has been pleased to make this
precise visitation upon us—an eye for an eye, I suppose, _somewhere_. And to that conviction I shall hold until actual circumstances convince
me that it’s false. What, however, and this is all that I have to say
now, what I cannot understand are your amazing indiscretions.’

‘Do you understand your own, Sheila?’

‘My indiscretions, Arthur?’

‘Well,’ said Lawford, ‘wasn’t it indiscreet, don’t you think, to risk
divine retribution by marrying me? Shouldn’t you have inquired? Wasn’t
it indiscreet to allow me to remain here in—in my “visitation?” Wasn’t
it indiscreet to risk the moral stigma this unhappy face of mine must
cast on its surroundings? I am not sure whether such a change as this
constitutes cruelty.... Oh, what is the use of fretting and babbling on
like this?’

‘Am I to understand, then, that you refuse positively to discuss this
horrible business any more? You are doing your best to drive me away,
Arthur; you must see that. Will you be very disappointed if I refuse to
go?’

Lawford rose from the bed. ‘Listen just this once,’ he said, seating
himself on the corner of the dressing-table. ‘Imagine all this—whatever
you like to call it—obliterated. Take this,’ he nodded towards the
glass, ‘entirely for itself, on its own merits, as it were. Let the
dead past bury its dead. Which, now, precisely, _really_ do you
prefer—him,’ he jerked his head in the direction of the dispassionate
youthful picture on the wall, ‘him or me?’

He was so close to her now that he could see the faintest tremor on the
face that had suddenly become grey and still in the thin clear
sunshine. ‘I own it, I own it,’ he went on, slowly; ‘the change is more than
skin-deep now. One can’t go through what I have gone through these last
few terrifying days, Sheila, unchanged. They have played the devil with
my body; now begins the tampering with my mind. Not even Danton knows
how it will end. But shall I tell you why you won’t, why you can’t
answer me that one question—him or me? Shall I tell you?’

Sheila slowly raised her eyes. ‘It is because, my dear, you don’t care the ghost of a straw for
either. That one—he was worn out long ago, and we never knew it. I know
it now. Time and the sheer going-on of day by day, without either of us
guessing at it, wore that down till it had no more meaning for you or
me than any other faded remembrance in this interminable footling with
truth that we call life. And this one—the whole abject meaning of it
lies simply in the fact that it has pierced down and shown us up. I had
no courage. I couldn’t see how feeble a hold I had on life—just one’s
friends’ opinions. It was all at second hand. What I want to know now
is—leave me out; don’t think, or care, or regard my living-on one
shadow of an iota—all I ask is, What am I to do for you?’ He turned
away and stood staring down at the cinders in the fireless grate.