She nodded reluctantly, then looked at him with a troubled brow.
"Roger, where in heaven's name do you suppose that poor girl has been these past two days?"
He shook his head slowly.
"If we knew that, Dido, we'd have the key to the whole damned mystery," he said.
Sinking down wearily in the chair beside the bed he painstakingly attempted to organise a plan of action. It was a difficult business when he had so little he could definitely go on. His efforts brought meagre results; moreover he felt confused, curiously fatigued in mind and body. In the dim light of the shaded lamp the figures on the Toile de Jouy danced incessantly before his eyes with an eerie effect; he felt himself enveloped in a phantasmagoria of which it was impossible to tell substance from shadow. Every few seconds his eyes kept gravitating back to the pale, fragile face of Esther, which was troubled even in sleep, the brow furrowed slightly, the muscles about the mouth twitching from time to time. Whatever the cause of her present state, he felt gravely apprehensive for her, afraid that she might be in for a serious nervous illness. Perhaps what she wished to tell him might be buried in oblivion for months, if indeed it ever came to light. It even occurred to him that she might wake up completely ignorant of everything that had preceded her collapse. In that case what should he do? how should he behave? He knew he could never rid his mind entirely of the suspicion she had planted there, yet how to prove it?
The door opened quietly, and Chalmers came in, bringing him a cup of coffee.
"The doctor's gone to his room, now, sir, otherwise I wouldn't be here.
I've stuck about the hall and stairs the whole time, sir."
"What about her ladyship?"
"She's never tried to leave her room, sir. I've heard her trying to get on to someone on the telephone, it seems as though she's been at it for hours, but I fancy she hasn't got through."
"Has she had any chance of speaking with the doctor?"