Tabs rose from the couch and limped over to the empty fireplace. He stood there beneath the portrait of Lady Dawn, supporting himself with one arm against the mantel. The room was beginning to fill with dusk. Beyond the threshold of the open window, the rockery-garden was still vaguely golden. The little pond was a silver mirror.
Perhaps two minutes had elapsed. Uncertainly the stranger struggled to his feet. He moved towards the door, halted and came slowly back. He looked very spent, and slim, and wasted in the gathering shadows. As Tabs gazed down at him, he noticed that his face was prodigiously solemn.
"I don't mind now." He swallowed like a small boy getting rid of his emotion. "I don't mind Gervis or Lockwood any longer; it's as though they'd never happened. And I don't feel hard to her, the way I might have. I'm glad you told her about things being round the corner. Because I'm Pollock. I have come back."
Tabs stared at him. He was deeply moved. To humor him in his delusion seemed the height of callousness. Yet what else was possible under the circumstances?
"Of course you're Pollock," he assured him gently. "One wouldn't recognize you from your portraits, but I ought to have guessed."
The man caught the deception in his tone. He lifted up his puzzled gray eyes. "You don't—— No, I see you don't. You don't believe me. Yet I am Pollock."
"My dear chap," Tabs said it coaxingly, "I don't see why you should think I doubt you. I'm quite certain you're Pollock—Reggie Pollock, the first of all the aces: the man who brought down the Zeppelin over Brussels. You see I know all about you. Your picture was in the papers. I've told you that you were expected. So why——"
The front door was heard to open and close. There was the sound of Maisie's voice. They stood rigidly listening in the semi-darkness. Neither of them spoke or stirred. As she entered, a shaft of light from the hall preceded her. Quietly Tabs placed himself between her and the stranger. The stranger made no motion to thwart him; he stood like one turned to stone. Just across the threshold she halted, leaning forward slightly and peering through the shadows.
"Why, Tabs," she laughed, "how romantic of you to sit waiting for me in the twilight!"