The afternoon, being thus shortened, passed more quickly than they expected. Once Mrs. Flushing opened the door, but on seeing them shut it again quickly; once Helen came down to fetch something, but she stopped as she left the room to look at a letter addressed to her. She stood for a moment turning it over, and the extraordinary and mournful beauty of her attitude struck Terence in the way things struck him now--as something to be put away in his mind and to be thought about afterwards. They scarcely spoke, the argument between them seeming to be suspended or forgotten.
Now that the afternoon sun had left the front of the house, Ridley paced up and down the terrace repeating stanzas of a long poem, in a subdued but suddenly sonorous voice. Fragments of the poem were wafted in at the open window as he passed and repassed.
Peor and Baalim Forsake their Temples dim, With that twice batter'd God of Palestine And mooned Astaroth--
The sound of these words were strangely discomforting to both the young men, but they had to be borne. As the evening drew on and the red light of the sunset glittered far away on the sea, the same sense of desperation attacked both Terence and St. John at the thought that the day was nearly over, and that another night was at hand.
The appearance of one light after another in the town beneath them produced in Hirst a repetition of his terrible and disgusting desire to break down and sob. Then the lamps were brought in by Chailey.
She explained that Maria, in opening a bottle, had been so foolish as to cut her arm badly, but she had bound it up; it was unfortunate when there was so much work to be done. Chailey herself limped because of the rheumatism in her feet, but it appeared to her mere waste of time to take any notice of the unruly flesh of servants.
The evening went on. Dr. Lesage arrived unexpectedly, and stayed upstairs a very long time. He came down once and drank a cup of coffee.
"She is very ill," he said in answer to Ridley's question.
All the annoyance had by this time left his manner, he was grave and formal, but at the same time it was full of consideration, which had not marked it before. He went upstairs again.
The three men sat together in the drawing-room. Ridley was quite quiet now, and his attention seemed to be thoroughly awakened.
Save for little half-voluntary movements and exclamations that were stifled at once, they waited in complete silence.
It seemed as if they were at last brought together face to face with something definite.
It was nearly eleven o'clock when Dr. Lesage again appeared in the room.
He approached them very slowly, and did not speak at once.
He looked first at St. John and then at Terence, and said to Terence, "Mr. Hewet, I think you should go upstairs now."
Terence rose immediately, leaving the others seated with Dr. Lesage standing motionless between them.
Chailey was in the passage outside, repeating over and over again, "It's wicked--it's wicked."
Terence paid her no attention; he heard what she was saying, but it conveyed no meaning to his mind. All the way upstairs he kept saying to himself, "This has not happened to me. It is not possible that this has happened to me."
He looked curiously at his own hand on the banisters. The stairs were very steep, and it seemed to take him a long time to surmount them.
Instead of feeling keenly, as he knew that he ought to feel, he felt nothing at all. When he opened the door he saw Helen sitting by the bedside. There were shaded lights on the table, and the room, though it seemed to be full of a great many things, was very tidy.
There was a faint and not unpleasant smell of disinfectants.
