The God in the Car: A Novel

"Hush, hush," whispered Maggie Dennison. "Hush, dear. Don't do that. Why should you do that?" and she stroked the girl's hot cheek, wet with tears. "I'm very tired, Marjory," she went on. "Do you think you can dry your eyes – your silly eyes – and help me upstairs? I – I can hardly stand," and, as she spoke, she swayed and caught at the curtain by her, and held herself up by it. "No, I can go alone!" she exclaimed almost fiercely. "Leave me alone, Marjory, I can walk. I can walk perfectly;" and she walked steadily across the room, and Marjory heard her unwavering step mounting the stairs to her bedroom.

But Marjory did not see her enter her room, stop for a moment over the scraps of torn paper, still lying on the floor, stoop and gather them one by one, then put them in an envelope, and the envelope in her purse, and then throw herself on the bed in an agony of dumb pain, with the look on her face that had come for a moment in the garden and came now, fearless of being driven away, lined strong and deep, as though graven with some sharp tool.

CHAPTER XX
THE BARON'S CONTRIBUTION

It may be that the Baron thought he had sucked the orange of life very dry – at least, when the cold winds and the fog had done their work, he accepted without passionate disinclination the hint that he must soon take his lips from the fruit. He went to bed and made a codicil to his will, having it executed and witnessed with every requisite formality. Then he announced to Lord Semingham, who came to see him, that, according to his doctor's opinion and his own, he might manage to breathe a week longer; and Semingham, looking upon him, fancied, without saying, that the opinion was a sanguine one. This happened five days before Harry Dennison's arrival at Dieppe.

"I am very fortunate," said the Baron, "to have found such kind friends for the last stage;" and he looked from Lady Semingham's flowers to Adela's grapes. "I could have bought them, of course," he added. "I've always been able to buy – everything."

The old man smiled as he spoke, and Semingham smiled also.

"This," continued the Baron, "is the third time I have been laid up like this."

"There's luck in odd numbers," observed Semingham.

"But which would be luck?" asked the Baron.

"Ah, there you gravel me," admitted Semingham.

"I came here against orders, because I must needs poke my old nose into this concern of yours – "

"Not of mine."

"Of yours and others. Well, I poked it in – and the frost has caught the end of it."

"I don't take any particular pleasure in the concern myself," said Semingham, "and I wish you'd kept your nose out, and yourself in a more balmy climate."

"My dear Lord, the market is rising."

"I know," smiled Semingham. "Tom Loring can't make out who the fools are who are buying. He said so this morning."

The Baron began to laugh, but a cough choked his mirth.

"He's an honest and an able man, your Loring; but he doesn't see clear in everything. I've been buying, myself."

"Oh, you have?"

"Yes, and someone has been selling – selling largely – or the price would have been driven higher. It is you, perhaps, my friend?"

"Not a share. I have the vices of an aristocracy. I am stubborn."

"Who, then?"

"It might be – Dennison."

The Baron nodded.

"But what did you want with 'em, Baron? Will they pay?"

"Oh, I doubt that. But I wanted them. Why should Dennison sell?"

"I suppose he doubts, like you."

"Perhaps it is that."

"Perhaps," said Semingham.

In the course of the next three days they had many conversations; the talks did the Baron no good nor, as his doctor significantly said, any harm; and when he could not talk, Semingham sat by him and told stories. He spoke too, frequently, of Willie Ruston, and of the Company – that interested the Baron. And at last, on the third day, they began to speak of Maggie Dennison; but neither of them connected the two names in talk. Indeed Semingham, according to his custom, had rushed at the possibility of ignoring such connection. Ruston's disappearance had shown him a way; and he embraced the happy chance. He was always ready to think that any "fuss" was a mistake; and, as he told the Baron, Mrs. Dennison had been in great spirits lately, cheered up, it seemed, by the prospect of her husband's immediate arrival. The Baron smiled to hear him; then he asked,

"Do you think she would come to see me?"

Semingham promised to ask her; and, although the Baron was fit to see nobody the next day – for he had moved swiftly towards his journey's end in those twenty-four hours – yet Mrs. Dennison came and was admitted; and, at sight of the Baron, who lay yellow and gasping, forgot both her acting and, for an instant, the reality which it hid.

"Oh!" she cried before she could stop herself, "how ill you look! Let me make you comfortable!"

The Baron did not deny her. He had something to say to her.

"When does your husband come?" he asked.

"To-morrow," said she briefly.

She did all she could for his comfort, and then sat down by his bedside. He had an interval of some freedom from oppression and his mind was clear and concentrated.

"I want to tell you," he began, "something that I have done." He paused, and added a question, "Ruston does not come back to Dieppe, I suppose?"

"I think not. He is detained on business," she answered, "and he will be more tied when my husband leaves."

"Your husband will not long be concerned in the Omofaga," said he.

She started; the Baron told her what he had told Semingham.

"He will soon resign his place on the Board, you will see," he ended.

She sat silent.

"He will have nothing more to do with it, you will see;" and, turning to her, he asked with a sudden spurt of vigour, "Do you know why?"

"How should I?" she answered steadily.

"And I – I have done my part too. I have left him some money (she knew that the Baron did not mean her husband) and all the shares I held."

"You've done that?" she cried, with a sudden light in her eyes.

"You do not want to know why?"

"Oh, I know you admired him. You told me so."

"Yes, that in part. I did admire him. He was what I have never been. I wish he was here now. I should like to look at that face of his before I die. But it was not for his sake that I left him the money. Why, he could get it without me if he needed it! You don't ask me why?"

In his excitement he had painfully pulled himself higher up on his pillows, and his head was on the level with hers now. He looked right into her eyes. She was very pale, but calm and self-controlled.

"I don't know," she said. "Why have you?"

"It will make him independent of your husband," said the Baron.

Mrs. Dennison dropped her eyes and raised them again in a swift, questioning glance.

"Yes, and of you. He need not look to you now."

He paused and added, slowly, punctuating every word,

"You will not be necessary to him now."

Mrs. Dennison met his gaze full and straight; the Baron stretched out his hand.

"Ah, forgive me!" he exclaimed.

"There is nothing to forgive," said she.

"I saw; I knew; I have felt it. Now he will go away; he will not lean on you now. I have set him where he can stand alone."

A smile, half scornful and half sad, came on her face.

"You hate me," said the Baron. "But I am right."

"I was – we were never necessary to him," said she. "Ah, Baron, this is no news you give me. I know him better than that."

He raised himself higher still, panting as he rested on his elbow. His head craned forward towards her as he whispered,

"I'm a dying man. You can tell me."

"If you were a dead man – " she burst out passionately. Then she suddenly recovered herself.

"My dear Baron," she went on, "I'm very glad you've done this for Mr. Ruston."

He sank down on his pillows with a weary sigh.

"Let him alone, let him alone," he moaned. "You thought yourself strong."

"I suppose you mean kindly," she said, speaking very coldly. "Indeed, that you should think of me at all just now shows it. But, Baron, you are disquieting yourself without cause."

"I'm an old man, and a sick man," he pleaded, "and you, my dear – "

"Ah, suppose I have been – whatever you like – indiscreet? Well – ?"

She paused, for he made a feebly impatient gesture. Mrs. Dennison kept silence for a moment; then in a low tone she said,

"Baron, why do you speak to a woman about such things, unless you want her to lie to you?"

The Baron, after a moment, gave his answer, that was no answer.

"He is gone," he said.

"Yes, he is gone – to look after his railway."

"It is finished then?" he half asked, half implored, and just caught her low-toned reply.

"Finished? Who for?" Then she suddenly raised her voice, crying, "What is it to you? Why can't I be let alone? How dare you make me talk about it?"

"I have done," said he, and, laying his thin yellow hand in hers, he went on, "If you meet him again – and I think you will – tell him that I longed to see him, as a man who is dying longs for his son. He would be a breath of life to me in this room, where everything seems dead. He is full of life – full as a tiger. And you can tell him – " He stopped a moment and smiled. "You can tell him why I was a buyer of Omofagas. What will he say?"

"What will he say?" she echoed, with wide-opened eyes, that watched the old man's slow-moving lips.

"Will he weep?" asked the Baron.

"In God's name, don't!" she stammered.

"He will say, 'Behold, the Baron von Geltschmidt was a good man – he was of use in the world – may he sleep in peace!' And now – how goes the railway?"

The old man lay silent, with a grim smile on his face. The woman sat by, with lips set tight in an agony of repression. At last she spoke.

"If I'd known you were going to tell me this, I wouldn't have come."

"It's hard, hard, hard, but – "

"Oh, not that. But – I knew it."

She rose to her feet.

"Good-bye," said the Baron. "I shan't see you again. God make it light for you, my dear."

She would not seem to hear him. She smoothed his pillows and his scanty straggling hair; then she kissed his forehead.

"Good-bye," she said. "I will tell Willie when I see him. I shall see him soon."

The old man moaned softly and miserably.

"It would be better if you lay here," he said.

"Yes, I suppose so," she answered, almost listlessly. "Good-bye."

Suddenly he detained her, catching her hand.

"Do you believe in people meeting again anywhere?" he asked.

"Oh, I suppose so. No, I don't know, I'm sure."

"They've been telling me to have a priest. I call myself a Catholic, you know. What can I say to a priest? I have done nothing but make money. If that is a sin, it's too simple to need confession, and I've done too much of it for absolution. How can I talk to a priest? I shall have no priest."

She did not speak, but let him hold her hand.

"If," he went on, with a little smile, "I'm asked anywhere what I've done, I must say, 'I've made money.' That's all I shall have to say."

She stooped low over him and whispered,

"You can say one more thing, Baron – one little thing. You once tried to save a woman," and she kissed him again and was gone.

Outside the house, she found Semingham waiting for her.

"Oh, I say, Mrs. Dennison," he cried, "Harry's come. He got away a day earlier than he expected. I met him driving up towards your house."

For just a moment she stood aghast. It came upon her with a shock; between a respite of a day and the actual terrible now, there had seemed a gulf.

"Is he there – at the house – now?" she asked.

Semingham nodded.

"Will you walk up with me?" she asked eagerly. "I must go directly, you know. He'll be so sorry not to find me there. Do you mind coming? I'm tired."

He offered his arm, and she almost clutched at it, but she walked with nervous quickness.

"He's looking very well," said Semingham. "A bit fagged, and so on, you know, of course, but he'll soon get all right here."

"Yes, yes, very soon," she replied absently, quickening her pace till he had to force his to match it. But, half-way up the hill, she stopped suddenly, breathing rapidly.

"Yes, take a rest, we've been bucketing," said he.

"Did he ask after me?"

"Yes; directly."

"And you said – ?"

"Oh, that you were all right, Mrs. Dennison."

"Thanks. Has he seen Mr. Loring?"

"No; but he knew he had come here. He told me so."

"Well, I needn't take you right up, need I?"

Semingham thought of some jest about not intruding on the sacred scene, but the jest did not come. Somehow he shrank from it. Mrs. Dennison did not.

"We shall want to fall on one another's necks," said she, smiling. "And you'd feel in the way. You hate honest emotions, you know."

He nodded, lifted his hat, and turned. On his way down alone, he stopped once for a moment and exclaimed,

"Good heavens! And I believe she'd rather meet the devil himself. She is a woman!"

Mrs. Dennison pursued her way at a gentler pace. Before she came in sight, she heard her children's delighted chatterings, and, a moment later, Harry's hearty tones. His voice brought to her, in fullest force, the thing that was always with her – with her as the cloak that a man hath upon him, and as the girdle that he is always girded withal.

When the children saw her, they ran to her, seizing her hands and dragging her towards Harry. A little way off stood Marjory Valentine, with a nervous smile on her lips. Harry himself stood waiting, and Mrs. Dennison walked up to him and kissed him. Not till that was done did she speak or look him in the face. He returned her kiss, and then, talking rapidly, she made him sit down, and sat herself, and took her little boy on her knee. And she called Marjory, telling her jokingly that she was one of the family.

Harry began to talk of his journey, and they all joined in. Then he grew silent, and the children chattered more about the delights of Dieppe, and how all would be perfect now that father was come. And, under cover of their chatter, Maggie Dennison stole a long covert glance at her husband.

"And Tom's here, father," cried the little boy on her lap exultingly.

"Yes," chimed in Madge, "and Mr. Ruston's gone."

There was a momentary pause; then Mrs. Dennison, in her calmest voice, began to tell her husband of the sickness of the Baron. And over Harry Dennison's face there rested a new look, and she felt it on her as she talked of the Baron. She had seen him before unsatisfied, puzzled, and bewildered by her, but never before with this look on his face. It seemed to her half entreaty and half suspicion. It was plain for everyone to see. He kept his eyes on her, and she knew that Marjory must be reading him as she read him. And under that look she went on talking about the Baron. The look did not frighten her. She did not fear his suspicions, for she believed he would still take her word against all the world – ay, against the plainest proof. But she almost broke under the burden of it; it made her heart sick with pity for him. She longed to cry out, then and there, "It isn't true, Harry, my poor dear, it isn't true." She could tell him that – it would not be all a lie. And when the children went away to prepare for lunch, she did much that very thing; for, with a laughing glance of apology at Marjory, she sat on her husband's knee and kissed him twice on either check, whispering,

"I'm so glad you've come, Harry."

And he caught her to him with sudden violence – unlike his usual manner, and looked into her eyes and kissed her. Then they rose, and he turned towards the house.

For a moment Marjory and Mrs. Dennison were alone together. Mrs. Dennison spoke in a loud clear voice – a voice her husband must hear.

"We're shamefully foolish, aren't we, Marjory?"

The girl made no answer, but, as she looked at Maggie Dennison, she burst into a sudden convulsive sob.

"Hush, hush," whispered Maggie eagerly. "My God! if I can, you can!"

So they went in and joined the children at their merry noisy meal.

CHAPTER XXI
A JOINT IN HIS ARMOUR

Willie Ruston slept, on the night following his return to London, in the Carlins' house at Hampstead. The all-important question of the railway made a consultation necessary, and Ruston's indisposition to face his solitary rooms caused him to accept gladly the proffered hospitality. The little cramped place was always a refuge and a rest; there he could best rejoice over a victory or forget a temporary defeat. There he fled now, in the turmoil of his mind. The question of the railway had hurried him from Dieppe, but it could not carry away from him the memories of Dieppe. Yet that was the office he had already begun to ask of it – of it and of the quiet busy life at Hampstead, where he lingered till a week stretched to two and to three, spending his days at work in the City, and his evenings, after his romp with the children, in earnest and eager talk and speculation. He regretted bitterly his going to Dieppe. He had done what he condemned; he had raised up a perpetual reproach and a possible danger. He was not a man who could dismiss such a thing with a laugh or a sneer, with a pang of penitence and a swift reaction to the low levels of morality, with a regret for imprudence and a prayer against consequences. His nature was too deep, and the influence he had met too strong, for any of these to be enough. Yet he had suffered the question of the railway to drag him away at a moment's notice; and he was persuaded that he must take his leaving as setting an end to all that had passed. All that must be put behind; forgetfulness in thought might be a relief impossible to attain, a relief that he would be ashamed of striving to attain; but forgetfulness in act seemed a duty to be done. In his undeviating reference of everything to his own work in life and his neglect of any other touchstone, he erected into an obligation what to another would have been a shameless matter of course; or, again, to yet another, a source of shame-faced relief. His sins were sin first against himself, in the second degree only against the participant in them; his preoccupation with their first quality went far to blind him to the second.

Yet he was very sorry for Maggie Dennison. Nay, those words were ludicrously feeble for the meaning he wanted from them. Acutely conscious of having done her a wrong, he was vaguely aware that he might underestimate the wrong, and remembered uneasily how she had told him that he did not understand, and despaired because he could not understand. He felt more for her now – much more, it seemed to him; but the consciousness of failure to put himself where she stood dogged him, making him afraid sometimes that he could not realise her sufferings, sometimes that he was imputing to her fictitious tortures and a sense of ignominy which was not her own. Searching light, he began to talk to Carlin in general terms, of course, and by way of chance discourse; and he ran up against a curious stratum of Puritanism imbedded amongst the man's elastic principles. The narrowest and harshest judgment of an erring woman accompanied the supple trader and witnessed the surviving barbarian in Mr. Carlin; an accidental distant allusion displayed an equally relentless attitude in his meek hard-working little wife. Willie Ruston drew in his feelers, and, aghast at the evil these opinions stamped as the product of his acts, declared for a moment that his life must be the only and insufficient atonement. The moment was a brief one. He dismissed the opinions with a curse, their authors with a smile, and did not scorn to take for comfort even Maggie Dennison's own enthusiasm for his work. That had drawn them together; that must rule and limit the connection which it had created. An end – a bound – a peremptory stop (there was still time to stop) was the thing. She would see that, as he saw it. God knew (he said to himself) what a wrench it was – for she meant more to him than he had ever conceived a woman could mean; but the wrench must be undergone. He would rather die than wreck his work; and she, he knew, rather die than prove a wrecking siren to him.

Suddenly, across the desponding stubbornness of his resolves, flashed, with a bright white light, the news of the Baron's legacy, accompanying, but, after a hasty regretful thought and a kindly regretful smile, obliterating the fact of the Baron's death. Half the steps upward, he felt, which he had set himself painfully and with impatient labour to cut, were hewn deep and smooth for his feet; he had now but to tread, and lift his foot and tread again. From a paid servant of his Company, powerful only by a secret influence unbased on any substantial foundation, he leapt to the position of a shareholder with a larger stake than any man besides; no intrigue could shake him now, no sudden gust of petulant impatience at the tardiness of results displace him. He had never thought of this motive behind the Baron's large purchases of Omofaga shares; as he thought of it, he had not been himself had he not smiled. And his smile was of the same quality as had burst on his face when first Maggie Dennison dropped the veil and owned his sway.

One day he did not go down to the city, but spent his time wandering on the heath, mapping out what he would do in the fast-approaching days in Omofaga. The prospects were clearing; he had had two interviews with Lord Detchmore, and the Minister had fallen back from his own objections on to the scruples of his colleagues. It was a promising sign, and Willie was pressing his advantage. The fall in the shares had been checked; Tom Loring wrote no more; and Mrs. Carlin had forgotten to mourn the extinct coal business. He came home, with a buoyant step, at four o'clock, to find Carlin awaiting him with dismayed face. There was the worst of news from Queen Street. Mr. Dennison had written announcing resignation of his place on the Board.

"It's a staggering blow," said Carlin, thrusting his hands into his pockets. "Can't you bring him round? Why is he doing it?"

"Well, what does he say?" asked Ruston, a frown on his brow.

"Oh, some nonsense – pressure of other business or something of that kind. Can't you go and see him, Willie? He's back in town. He writes from Curzon Street."

"I don't know why he does it," said Ruston slowly. "I knew he'd been selling out."

"He hasn't made money at that."

"No. I've made the profit there," said Ruston, with a sudden smile.

"The Baron bought 'em, eh?" laughed Carlin. "You generally come out right side up, Willie. You'll go and see him, though, won't you?"

Yes. He would go. That was the resolution which in a moment he reached. If there were danger, he must face it, if there were calamity, he must know it. He would go and see Harry Dennison.

As he was, on the stroke of half-past four, he jumped into a hansom-cab, and bade the man drive to Curzon Street.

Harry was not at home – nor Mrs. Dennison, added the servant. But both were expected soon.

"I'll wait," said Willie, and he was shown up into the drawing-room.

As the servant opened the door, he said in his low respectful tones,

"Mrs. Cormack is here, sir, waiting for Mrs. Dennison."

A moment later Willie Ruston was overwhelmed in a shrilly enthusiastic greeting. Mrs. Cormack had been in despair from ennui; Maggie's delay was endless, and Mr. Ruston was in verity a godsend. Indeed there was every appearance of sincerity in the lady's welcome. She stood and looked at him with an expression of most wicked and mischievous pleasure. The remorse detected by Tom Loring was not visible now; pure delight reigned supreme, and gave free scope to her frivolous fearlessness.

"Enfin!" she said. "Behold the villain of the piece!"

He opened his eyes in questioning.

"Oh, you think to deceive me too? Why, I have prophesied it."

"You are," said Willie, standing on the hearth-rug, and gazing at her nervous restless figure, so rich in half-expressed hints too subtle for language, "the most outrageous of women, Mrs. Cormack. Fortunately you have a fling at everybody, and the saints come off as badly as the sinners."

A shrug asserted her opinion of his pretences. He answered,

"I really am so unfortunate as not to have the least idea what you're driving at."

An inarticulate scornful little sound greeted this protest.

"Oh, well, I shall wait till you say something," remarked Willie, with a laugh. "I can't deny villainies wholesale, and I can't argue against Gallic ejaculations."

"You still come here?" she asked, ignoring his rudeness, and coming to close quarters with native audacity.

He looked at her for a moment, and then walked up to her chair, and stood over her. She leant back, gazing up at him with a smile.

"Look here! Don't talk nonsense," he said brusquely; "even such talk as yours may do harm with fools."

"Fools!" she echoed. "You mean – ?"

"More than half the world," he interrupted.

"Including – ?" she began again in mockery.

"Some of our acquaintance," he answered, with the glimmer of a smile.

"Ah, I thought you were angry!" she cried, pointing at the smile on his lips.

"I shall be, if you don't hold your tongue."

"You beg me to be silent, Mr. Ruston?"

"I desire you not to chatter about me, Mrs. Cormack."

"Ah, what politeness! I shall say what I please," and she rose and stood facing him defiantly.

"I wish," he said, "that I could tell you what they do to gossiping women in Omofaga. It is so very disagreeable – and appropriate."

"Oh, I don't mind hearing."

"I can believe it, but I mind saying."

She flushed, and her breath came more quickly.

"No doubt you will enforce the treatment – in your own interest," she said.

"You won't be there," replied he, with affected regret.

"Well, here I shall say what I please."

"And who will listen?"

"One man, at least," she cried, in incautious anger. "Ah, you'd like to beat me, wouldn't you?"

"Why suggest the impossible?" he asked, smiling. "I can't beat every – " he paused, and added with deliberateness, "every vulgar-minded woman in London;" and turning his back on her, he sat down and took up a newspaper that lay on the table.

For full five or six minutes Mrs. Cormack sat silent. Willie Ruston glanced through the leading article, and turned the paper, folding it neatly. There was a letter from a correspondent on the subject of the watersheds of Central South Africa, and he was reading it with attention. He thought that he recognised Tom Loring's hand. The watersheds of Omofaga were not given their due. Ah, and here was that old falsehood about arid wastes round Fort Imperial!

"By Jove, it's too bad!" he exclaimed aloud.

Mrs. Cormack, who had for the last few moments been watching him, first with a frown, then with a half-incredulous, half-amazed smile, burst out into laughter.

"Really, one might as well be offended with a grizzly bear!" she cried.

He put down the paper, and met her gaze.

"How in the world," she went on, "does she – there, I beg your pardon. How does anyone endure you, Mr. Ruston?"

As she spoke, before he could answer, the door opened, and Harry Dennison came in. He entered with a hesitating step. After greeting Mrs. Cormack, he advanced towards Ruston. The latter held out his hand, and Harry took it. He did not look Ruston in the eyes.

"How are you?" said he. "You want to see me?"

"Well, for a moment, if you can spare the time – on business."

"Is it about my letter to Carlin?"

Ruston nodded. Mrs. Cormack kept a close watch.

"I – I can't alter that," said Harry, in a confused way. "Sir George is so crippled now, so much of the work falls on me; I have really no time."

"You might have left us your name."

"I couldn't do that, could I? Suppose you came to grief?" and he laughed uncomfortably.

Willie Ruston was afflicted by a sense of weakness – a vulnerability new in his experience – forbidding him to be urgent with the renegade. Had Carlin been present, he would have stood astounded at his chief's tonguetiedness. Mrs. Cormack smiled at it, and her smile, caught in a swift glance by Ruston, spurred him to a voluble appeal, that sounded to himself hollow and ineffective. It had no effect on Harry Dennison, who said little, but shook his head with unfailing resolution. Mrs. Cormack could not resist the temptation to offer matters an opportunity of development.

"But what does Maggie say to your desertion?" she asked in an innocently playful way.

Harry seemed nonplussed at the question, and Willie Ruston interposed.

"We needn't bring Mrs. Dennison into it," he said, smiling. "It's a matter of business, and if Dennison has made up his mind – "

He ended with a shrug, and took up his hat.

"I – I think so, Ruston," stumbled Harry.

"Where is Maggie?" asked Mrs. Cormack curiously. "They told me she would be in soon."

"I don't know," said Harry. "She went out driving. She's sometimes late in coming back."

Ruston was shaking hands with Mrs. Cormack, and, when he walked out, Harry followed him. The two men went downstairs in silence. Harry opened the front door. Willie Ruston held out his hand, but Harry did not this time take it. Holding the door-knob, he looked at his visitor with a puzzled entreaty in his eyes, and his visitor suddenly felt sorry for him.

"I hope Mrs. Dennison is well?" said Ruston, after a pause.

"No," answered Harry, with rough abruptness. "She's not well. I knew how it would be; I told you. You would go."

"My dear fellow – "

"You would talk to her about your miserable Company – our Company, if you like. I knew it would do her harm. I told you so."

He was pouring out his incoherent charges and repetitions in a fretful petulance.

"The doctor says her nerves are all wrong; she must be left alone. I see it. She's not herself."

"Then that," said Ruston, "is the real reason why you're severing yourself from us?"

"I don't want her to hear anything more about it; she got absorbed in it. I told you she would, but you wouldn't listen. Tom Loring thought just the same. But you would go."

"Is she ill?"

"Oh, I don't know that she's ill. She's – she's not herself. She's strange."

The note of distress in his voice grew more acute as he went on.

"I'm very sorry," said Willie, baldly. "Give her my best – "

"If you want to see me again about it, I – you'll always know where to find me in the City, won't you?" He shuffled his feet nervously, and twisted the door-knob as he spoke.