I shall come into the room no
more than necessity dictates. On Friday we resume our real parts. My
husband—Arthur—to—to connive at... Phh!’

Rage had transfigured her. She scarcely heard her own words. They
poured out senselessly, monotonously, one calling up another, as if
from the lips of a Cassandra. Lawford sank back into bed, clutching the
sheets with both lean hands. He took a deep breath and shut his mouth. ‘It reminds me, Sheila,’ he began arduously, ‘of our first quarrel
before we were married, the evening after your aunt Rose died at
Llandudno—do you remember? You threw open the window, and I think—I
saved your life.’ A pause followed. Then a queer, almost inarticulate
voice added, ‘At least, I am afraid so.’

A cold and awful quietness fell on Sheila’s heart. She stared fixedly
at the tuft of dark hair, the only visible sign of her husband, on the
pillow. Then, taking up the basin of cold cornflour, she left the room. In a quarter of an hour she reappeared carrying a tray, with ham and
eggs and coffee and honey invitingly displayed. She laid it down. ‘There is only one other question,’ she said, with perfect
composure—‘that of money. Your signature as it appears on the—the
document drawn up this morning, would, of course, be quite useless on a
cheque. I have taken all the money I could find; it is in safety. You
may, however, conceivably be in need of some yourself; here is five
pounds. I have my own cheque-book, and shall therefore have no need to
consider the question again for—for the present. So far as you are
concerned, I shall be guided solely by Mr Bethany. He will, I do not
doubt, take full responsibility.’

‘And may the Lord have mercy on my soul!’ uttered a stifled, unfamiliar
voice from the bed. Mrs Lawford stooped. ‘Arthur!’ she cried faintly,
‘Arthur!’

Lawford raised himself on his elbow with a sigh that was very near to
being a sob. ‘Oh, Sheila, if you’d only be your real self! What is the
use of all this pretence? Just consider _my_ position a little. The
fear and horror are not all on your side. You called me Arthur even
then. I’d willingly do anything you wish to save you pain; you know
that. Can’t we be friends even in this—this ghastly—Won’t you, Sheila?’

Mrs Lawford drew back, struggling with a doubtful heart. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘it would be better not to discuss that now.’

The rest of the morning Lawford remained in solitude. CHAPTER SIX


There were three books in the room—Jeremy Taylor’s ‘Holy Living and
Dying,’ a volume of the Quiver, and a little gilded book on
wildflowers. He read in vain. He lay and listened to the uproar of his
thoughts on which an occasional sound—the droning of a fly, the cry of
a milkman, the noise of a passing van—obtruded from the workaday world. The pale gold sunlight edged softly over the bed. He ate up everything
on his tray. He even, on the shoals of nightmare, dreamed awhile. But
by and by as the hours wheeled slowly on he grew less calm, less
strenuously resolved on lying there inactive. Every sparrow that
twittered cried reveille through his brain. He longed with an ardour
strange to his temperament to be up and doing. What if his misfortune was, as he had in the excitement of the moment
suggested to Sheila, only a morbid delusion of mind; shared too in part
by sheer force of his absurd confession? Even if he was going mad, who
knows how peaceful a release that might not be? Could his shrewd old
vicar have implicitly believed in him if the change were as complete as
he supposed it? He flung off the bedclothes and locked the door. He
dressed himself, noticing, he fancied, with a deadly revulsion of
feeling, that his coat was a little too short in the sleeves, his
waistcoat too loose. In the midst of his dressing came Sheila bringing
his luncheon. ‘I’m sorry,’ he called out, stooping quickly beside the
bed, ‘I can’t talk now. Please put the tray down.’

About half an hour afterwards he heard the outer door close, and
peeping from behind the curtains saw his wife go out. All was drowsily
quiet in the house. He devoured his lunch like a schoolboy. That
finished to the last crumb, without a moment’s delay he covered his
face with a towel, locked the door behind him, put the key in his
pocket, and ran lightly downstairs. He stuffed the towel into an ulster
pocket, put on a soft, wide-brimmed hat, and noiselessly let himself
out. Then he turned with an almost hysterical delight and ran—ran like
the wind, without pausing, without thinking, straight on, up one
turning, down another, until he reached a broad open common, thickly
wooded, sprinkled with gorse and hazel and may, and faintly purple with
fading heather. There he flung himself down in the beautiful sunlight,
among the yellowing bracken, to recover his breath. He lay there for many minutes, thinking almost with composure. Flight,
it seemed, had for the moment quietened the demands of that other
feebly struggling personality which was beginning to insinuate itself
into his consciousness, which had so miraculously broken in and taken
possession of his body. He would not think now. All he needed was a
little quiet and patience before he threw off for good and all his
right to be free, to be his own master, to call himself sane. He scrambled up and turned his face towards the westering sun. What was
there in the stillness of its beautiful splendour that seemed to
sharpen his horror and difficulty, and yet to stir him to such a daring
and devilry as he had never known since he was a boy? There was little
sound of life; somewhere an unknown bird was singing, and a few late
bees were droning in the bracken. All these years he had, like an old
blind horse, stolidly plodded round and round in a dull self-set
routine. And now, just when the spirit had come for rebellion, the mood
for a harmless truancy, there had fallen with them too this hideous
enigma. He sat there with the dusky silhouette of the face that was now
drenched with sunlight in his mind’s eye. He set off again up the stony
incline. Why not walk on and on? In time real wholesome weariness would come; he
could sleep at ease in some pleasant wayside inn, without once meeting
the eyes that stood as it were like a window between himself and a
shrewd incredulous scoffing world that would turn him into a
monstrosity and his story into a fable. And in a little while, perhaps
in three days, he would awaken out of this engrossing nightmare, and
know he was free, this black dog gone from his back, and (as the old
saying expressed it without any one dreaming what it really meant) his
own man again. How astonished Sheila would be; how warmly she would
welcome him!... Oh yes, of course she would. He came again to a standstill. No voice answered him out of that
illimitable gold and blue. Nothing seemed aware of him. But as he stood
there, doubtful as Cain on the outskirts of the unknown, he caught the
sound of a footfall on the lonely and stone-strewn path.