"You see," the doctor was saying in a low voice to Violet, "it may be cancer at the cardiac end of the stomach. I don't say it is. But it may be. That would account for the absence of appetite—and for other symptoms." In the moonlight he saw Violet wiping her eyes. "Come, come, Mrs. Earlforward, you mustn't give way."
"It's not that," Violet spluttered, who was crying at the thought that she had consistently misjudged Henry for many months past. Not from miserliness, but from illness, had he been refusing to eat. He could not eat normally. He was a stricken man, and to herself she had been accusing him of the meanest avarice and the lowest stupidity. She now in a flash acquitted him on every charge, and made him perfect. His astounding secretiveness as to his condition she tried to attribute to a regard for her feelings.
"What are we to do? What am I to do?"
"Oh!" said Dr. Raste. "Don't let that worry you. We'll get him away all right to-morrow morning. I'll come myself and fetch him."
At the same moment they both saw the bedroom door open and the lank figure of the patient in his blue-grey nightshirt emerge. The light was behind him, and threw his shadow across them. Elsie stood scared in the background.
"It's not the slightest use you two standing chattering there," Henry murmured bitterly. "I'm not going into a hospital, so you may as well know it."
"Oh, Henry!"
"Better get back to bed, Mr. Earlforward," said the doctor rather grimly and coldly.
"I'm going back to bed. I don't need you or anybody else to tell me I oughtn't to be out here. I'm going back to bed." And he limped back to bed triumphant.
Dr. Raste, who thought that he had nothing to learn about the strange possibilities of human behaviour, discovered that he had been mistaken. He could not hide that he was somewhat impressed. He again assured Violet that it would be all right in the morning, but he was not very convincing. As for Violet, since Dr. Raste was a little man, she did not consider that he had much chance, morally, against her husband, who was unlike all other men, and, indeed, the most formidable man on earth.