§6
For a little while her mind was full of fragments of speculation about this man. Was he a married man? Was he very much away from home? What did he earn? Were there ever disputes about his expenses?...
She must ask Isaac. For she was determined to go home and challenge her husband. She felt buoyed up by indignation and the consciousness of innocence....
And then she felt an odd little doubt whether her innocence was quite so manifest as she supposed?
That doubt grew to uncomfortable proportions.
For two years she had been meeting Mr. Brumley as confidently as though they had been invisible beings, and now she had to rack her brains for just what might be mistaken, what might be misconstrued. There was nothing, she told herself, nothing, it was all as open as the day, and still her mind groped about for some forgotten circumstance, something gone almost out of memory that would bear misinterpretation.... How should she begin? “Isaac,” she would say, “I am being followed about London.” Suppose he denied his complicity! How could he deny his complicity?
The cab ran in through the gates of her home and stopped at the door. Snagsby came hurrying down the steps with a face of consternation. “Sir Isaac, my lady, has come home in a very sad state indeed.”
Beyond Snagsby in the hall she came upon a lost-looking round-eyed Florence.
“Daddy’s ill again,” said Florence.
“You run to the nursery,” said Lady Harman.
“I thought I might help,” said Florence. “I don’t want to play with the others.”
“No, run away to the nursery.”
“I want to see the ossygen let out,” said Florence petulantly to her mother’s unsympathetic back. “I never see the ossygen let out. Mum—my!...”
Lady Harman found her husband on the couch in his bedroom. He was propped up in a sitting position with every available cushion and pillow. His coat and waistcoat and collar had been taken off, and his shirt and vest torn open. The nearest doctor, Almsworth, was in attendance, but oxygen had not arrived, and Sir Isaac with an expression of bitter malignity upon his face was fighting desperately for breath. If anything his malignity deepened at the sight of his wife. “Damned climate,” he gasped. “Wouldn’t have come back—except for your foolery.”
It seemed to help him to say that. He took a deep inhalation, pressed his lips tightly together, and nodded at her to confirm his words.
“If he’s fanciful,” said Almsworth. “If in any way your presence irritates him——”
“Let her stay,” said Sir Isaac. “It—pleases her....”
Almsworth’s colleague entered with the long-desired oxygen cylinder.