He dropped into a chair, supporting himself on the round table strewn with illustrated papers and magazines for the entertainment of waiting patients. His lips moved, but no sound passed them. Long, dark shadows streaked the pallor of his face.
She sat down beside him, covering his hands with her own. "She's all right, Thor dear ... now ... and I don't think she'll be any the worse for it in the end.... She may be the better.... We can't tell yet.... But—but you haven't heard it in the village, have you?"
He shook his head, perhaps because he was dazed, perhaps because he didn't trust himself to speak.
"That's good." She spoke breathlessly. "I was so afraid you might ... I wanted to tell you myself ... so that you wouldn't—you wouldn't get a shock.... There's no reason for a shock—not now, Thor.... It's only—it's only ... just what I was afraid of—what I spoke of at lunch.... She—she—she did it."
He found strength to speak. "She did—what?"
Lois continued the same breathless way. "She threw herself into the pond.... But she's all right.... Jim Breen and Robbie Willert were out in a boat—fishing.... They saw her.... They got to her just as she went down the second time.... Jim Breen dived after her and brought her up.... She wasn't unconscious very long ... and fortunately Dr. Hill was close by—at old Mrs. Jukes's in Schoolhouse Lane.... So she's home now and all right, or nearly.... I arrived just as they were bringing her ashore.... She was breathing then.... I went on before them to the house.... I told Mrs. Fay ... and Mr. Fay.... I saw them put her to bed.... She's all right.... And then I came here—to tell you, Thor—"
He struggled to his feet, throwing his head back and clenching his fists. "I swear to God that if I ever see Claude again I'll—I'll kill him!"
Without rising she caught one of his hands and pulled him downward. "Sit down, Thor," she said, in a tone of command. "You mustn't take it like that. You mustn't make things worse than they are. They're bad enough as it is. They're so bad—or at least so hard for—for some of us—that we must do everything we can to make it possible to bear them."
He sat down at her bidding; but with elbows resting on the table he covered his face with his hands. She clasped her own and sat looking at him. That is, she sat looking at his strong knuckles and at the shock of dark hair that fell over the finger-tips where the nails dug into his forehead. She felt a great pity for him; but a pity that permitted her to sit there, watchful, detached, not as if it was Thor—but some one else.
There would be an end now to silences and concealments. She saw that already. He was making no further attempt to keep her in the dark. In the shock of the moment all the barricades he had built around his secret life had fallen like the walls of Jericho. She had nothing to do but walk upward and inward and take possession. All was open. There was neither shrine nor sanctuary any longer. It was no privilege to be admitted thus; anybody would have been admitted who sat beside him as she was sitting now.