The Helpmate Part 74

The doctor was inscrutable. He might or he might not know. If he did, he would keep his knowledge to himself. They walked together from the station, and the doctor talked about the weather and the munic.i.p.al elections.

Anne was to be away a month. Majendie wrote to her every week and received, every week, a precise, formal little letter in reply. She told him, every week, of an improvement in her own health, and appeared solicitous for his.

While she was away, he saw a great deal of the Hannays and of Gorst. When he was not with the Hannays, Gorst was with him. Gorst was punctilious, but a little shy in his inquiries for Mrs. Majendie. The Hannays made no allusion to her beyond what decency demanded. They evidently regarded her as a painful subject.

About a week before the day fixed for Anne's return, the firm of Hannay & Majendie had occasion to consult its solicitor about a mortgage on some office buildings. Price was excited and a.s.siduous. Excited and a.s.siduous, Hannay thought, beyond all proportion to the trivial affair. Hannay noticed that Price took a peculiar and almost morbid interest in the junior partner. His manner set Hannay thinking. It suggested the legal instinct scenting the divorce-court from afar.

He spoke of it to Mrs. Hannay.

"Do you think she knows?" said Mrs. Hannay.

"Of course she does. Or why should she leave him, at a time when most people stick to each other if they've never stuck before?"

"Do you think she'll try for a separation?"

"No, I don't."

"I do," said Mrs. Hannay. "Now that the dear little girl's gone."

"Not she. She won't let him off as easily as all that. She'll think of the other woman. And she'll live with him and punish him for ever."

He paused pondering. Then he delivered himself of that which was within him, his idea of Anne.

"I always said she was a she-dog in the manger."

CHAPTER x.x.xV

Anne was not expected home before the middle of November. She wrote to her husband, fixing Sat.u.r.day for the day of her return.

Majendie, therefore, was surprised to find her luggage in the hall when he entered the house at six o'clock on Friday evening. Nanna had evidently been waiting for the sound of his latchkey. She hurried to intercept him.

"The mistress has come home, sir," she said.

"Has she? I hope you've got things comfortable for her."

"Yes, sir. We had a telegram this afternoon. She said she would like to see you in the study, sir, as soon as you came in."

He went at once into the study. Anne was sitting there in her chair by the hearth. Her hat and jacket were thrown on the writing-table that stood near in the middle of the room. She rose as he came in, but made no advance to meet him. He stood still for a moment by the closed door, and they held each other with their eyes.

"I didn't expect you till to-morrow."

"I sent a telegram," she said.

"If you'd sent it to the office I'd have met you."

"I didn't want anybody to meet me."

He felt that her words had some reference to their loss, and to the sadness of her home-coming. A sigh broke from him; but he was unaware that he had sighed.

He sat down, not in his accustomed seat by the hearth, opposite to hers, but in a nearer chair by the writing-table. He saw that she had been writing letters. He pushed them away and turned his chair round so as to face her. His heart ached looking at her.

There were deep lines on her forehead; and she was very pale, even her small close mouth had no colour in it. She kept her sad eyes half hidden under their drooping lids. Her lips were tightly compressed, her narrow nostrils white and pinched. It was a face in which all the doors of life were closing; where the inner life went on tensely, secretly, behind the closing doors.

"Well," he said, "I'm very glad you've come back."

"Walter--have you any idea why I went away?"

"Why you went? Obviously, it was the best thing you could do."

"It was the only thing I could do. And I am glad I did it. My mind has become clearer."

"_I_ see. I thought it would."

"It would not have been clear if I had stayed."

"No," he said vaguely, "of course it wouldn't."

"I've seen," she continued, "that there is nothing for me but to come back. It is the right thing."

"Did you doubt it?"

"Yes. I even doubted whether it were possible--whether, in the circ.u.mstances, I could bear to come back, to stay--"

"Do you mean--to--the house?"

"No. I mean--to you."

He turned away. "I understand," he said. "So it came to that?"

"Yes. It came to that. I've been here three hours; and up to the last hour, I was not sure whether I would not pack the rest of my things and go away. I had written a letter to you. There it is, under your arm."

"Am I to read it?"

"Yes."

He turned his back on her, and read the letter.

"I see. You say here you want a separation. If you want it you shall have it. But hadn't you better hear what I have to say, _first_?"

"I've come back for that. What have you to say?"

He bowed his head upon his breast.

"Not very much, I'm afraid. Except that I'm sorry--and ashamed of myself--and--I ask your forgiveness. What more can I say?"