He went straight up to bed. He had no spirit even for the unexacting routine of his own home. He kissed Joan, who met him in the hall, but without a word, and she went away, after a glance at his face. He would not see Dick when he came.
He slept through the evening, awoke to take some food and drink, but took very little, and slept again. If ever a man was ill, with whom no doctor could have found anything the matter, he was ill.
Mrs. Clinton hoped that he would sleep through the night, but soon after she laid herself down beside him, in the silence of the night, he awoke. The heavy sleep that had drugged him into insensibility for a time had also refreshed and strengthened him, and for succeeding hours he cried aloud his despair.
"What have I done?" That was the burden of his cry. "Where have I been wrong? Why am I so beaten down by punishment?"
But by and by, spent with beating against the bars, he began to speak calmly and reasonably, as if he were discussing the case of someone else, searching for the truth of things, impartially.
"When Humphrey came and asked me to do what I might very well have done for Gotch on my own account, I refused. I was right there. When he told me that Virginia had given him the money, what was I to do? It was too late to get it back. I had no right to. I might have told Virginia, perhaps, why the money had been wanted. No, I couldn't do that. I had promised Humphrey. I do think he ought not to have asked me for that promise. But it was given. What could I have done, Nina, at that stage? I knew about it, that devilish letter says. I allowed money to be paid to keep it secret. Was I to publish it abroad, directly Humphrey told me? Is there a man living who would have done that under the circumstances? Would Cheviot have done it himself? It might just as well have happened to him as to me. Nina, was I bound, by any law of God or man, to do that?"
"Edward dear, you have done no wrong——"
"No, but answer my question. If it had been you instead of me—that might very well have happened. Would you have said—after you had been told under a promise of secrecy, mind—Susan must be shown up? Even that wouldn't have been enough; Humphrey wouldn't have shown her up. You would have had to do it yourself. And how could you have done it? Can you really seriously say it was my duty, when Humphrey told me that story, to go and give information to the police?"
"Oh no, no, Edward."
"But what's the alternative? Upon my soul, Nina, I can't see any half-way house between that and what I did. I kept silence, they say. That was Cheviot's charge, and because I couldn't deny it, I stood condemned before him. I wish I could have put the question to him, as to what he would have expected of me. Confound him, and his supercilious way! Nina, you haven't answered me. What would you have done?"