“You mean I had better sit down and think over all this terrible tragedy,” she said, her voice beginning to break a little, “rather than find relief and rest in employment?”
“No; I do not actually say that you must not answer your letters, especially if you find it more bearable to work than to do nothing, but I strongly advise you to rest yourself as much as you can, and to avoid anything agitating beyond that which you must bear. There is plenty that, as your husband’s wife, you have got to bear. But if there are other things that worry you, I entreat you to shut the door in their faces. Exercise your will-power over that, and make it strong by resistance. Save yourself from anything harassing or troubling. I speak, of course, quite at random, but I feel sure that there are other things which are trying you most acutely.”
Then, without warning, the breaking-point came for her. All these months of ceaseless anxiety about Thurso had been a greater drain on her nerve force than she had known, and of set purpose she had not abated one jot of the numerous activities of her life, and had not allowed herself to consider how tired and drained she was. And simultaneously with that had come this storm and tempest into the secret life of her soul.
She gave a sudden shriek of laughter that did not sound like mirth.
“Oh, you conjurers!” she cried. “You doctors are like X rays! They see right into one’s inside. Good heavens! I should think I had enough to try me, and you don’t guess the half. If it was only Thurso it would be quite a holiday. Oh, how very funny——”
Sir James got up quickly, placed himself directly in front of her, and clapped his hands violently close to her face.
“Now, none of that!” he cried. “I haven’t come here to listen to hysterical ravings. Make an effort; pull yourself together. I’m ashamed of you.”
Catherine checked suddenly in the middle of her sentence; two or three tears, the precursors of the hysterical storm that had been on the point of bursting forth, had found their way onto her cheeks, and she wiped them off. The attack was arrested as suddenly as it had begun, and she stood silent a moment, still hearing the reverberation of his clapped hands.
“Yes, quite right,” she said. “Thank you very much.”
Sir James waited till he felt certain of her. Then he took up one of her hands and kissed it.