He helped me down, and I went into the homely little living-room lighted by the pale-green lamps. The supper-table was carefully laid out with an attempt at grace that was more touching than successful. As I looked at the clumsy little bunches of wild flowers arranged in tumblers, I felt that Bingham was a pleasant fellow. There was an honest, serene air about the simple room with its canvas deck-chairs, cane lounge, white-wood book shelves and framed photographs of English people on the walls. The woman who was coming from England to her man here should be very happy, I thought.
A light from the door of an adjoining room drew me thither, but before I reached it I passed some boxes piled against the wall—open packing cases full of provisions: canned beef, biscuits, bottles of preserved fruits, loose potatoes, a case of champagne. There was another case also, nailed up and branded with the name of John Dewar and Sons. I had lived long enough in Rhodesia to know that these were not the names of gentlemen-philanthropists who lived in the Imperial Institute and provided packing-case seats in the open air for the public. I now recognised a case of whiskey when I saw one. I fled from the room and from my thoughts.
The next room had nothing in it but a wholesome smell of pipe-tobacco, a rough desk with many papers piled on it, some racks of shelves, and a chair: obviously Mr Bingham’s office.
More simplicity in the bedroom: white mats, a white dressing-table of unpainted wood, a sheet of mirror in a white frame, a large white double bed. I gazed at that large white bed, fascinated, while the knowledge crept slowly over me that there was no other bed in the house. At last I turned away, and then I saw that in the mirror there was a woman who matched all the other white things in the room—a deathly white woman with a gay-tragic face, standing very still, her clutching hands full of papers. I stared at the papers for a moment wondering what they were, then remembered picking them up in the cart. I was holding a little green leather case too, that I had gathered up with them—something Maurice had dropped. I recalled having heard the little dull thud of it as it fell. It was a jewel-case, a small, new-looking, green leather box, and when I saw that it was half open I wondered if anything had been lost out of it. My mind turned to that question as though it was of importance far greater than the one that was blanching my cheeks and chilling my blood. It was imperative that I should fasten my mind on something outside itself, and I fastened it with avidity on the little green jewel-case half open in my hand.
“Perhaps something is lost out of it,” I repeated mechanically; something of Maurice’s—something of my husband’s!
I opened it entirely, looked in, and found that it contained one blue turquoise ear-ring.
It was a very new little box, with the name of the same Durban jeweller to whom I had sold my rings, printed in bright gold letters on the white satin lid. (Of course! I remembered it was Maurice who had given me the man’s address.)
The one ear-ring was stuck into a dent in the white velvet cushion; by its side was another little dent—empty.
“The other ear-ring must have been lost,” I said to the woman in the glass. She made no reply.
“The other—must have been lost!” I repeated, but I did not hear my voice, and though I saw that the lips of the woman in the glass were moving, no sound came from them.