"Oh! I'm coming back. I'm coming back."
While he was gone Mrs. Arb had a momentary lapse into terror. Suppose——! She glimpsed again the savage and primeval passion half-disclosed in the gestures and the glance of the young man, hints of forces uncontrollable, terrific and fatal.
"I expect he's that young fellow that's running after her," said Mr. Earlforward when he returned. "Seems he's had shell-shock! So I heard. She'll have to leave him alone—that's clear!" He was glad to think that he had found a new argument to help him to persuade Elsie not to desert him.
"She seemed to be so respectable!" observed Mrs. Arb.
"Well, she is!"
"Poor girl!" sighed Mrs. Arb; she felt a genuine, perturbing compassion for Elsie. "Ought I to go and tell the police, Mr. Earlforward?"
"If I were you I shouldn't have the police meddling. It's all right."
"Well, anyhow, I can't pass the night here by myself. No, I can't. And that's flat!" She smiled almost comically.
"You go off to bed," said Mr. Earlforward, with a magnificent wave of the hand. "I'll make myself comfortable in this rocking-chair. I'll stop till daylight."
Mrs. Arb said that she couldn't think of such a thing, and that he was too kind. He mastered her. Then she said she would put a bit of coal on the fire.