A month afterwards her husband died, after three weeks of intolerable torment. The doctor insisted on his having two trained nurses, but Lady Rorke never left him. She was present at the painful dressings of the wound from the operation that only prolonged the misery of his existence, and even slept on the sofa of the room where he lay.
Archie Rorke arrived that evening. He let me know at once that he had seen the announcement of Lady Rorke’s death, and said no more about it till later, when he and I were left alone over the fire in the smoking-room. He looked round to see that the door was shut behind the last bedgoer of my little party, and then turned to me.
“I’ve got to tell you something,” he said. “It’ll take half an hour, so to-morrow will do if you want to be off.”
“But I don’t,” said I.
He pulled himself together from his sprawling sunkenness in his chair.
“Very well,” he said. “What I want to tell you is the story of the breaking-off of my engagement with Sybil. I have often wanted to do so before, but while she was alive, as you will presently see, I could tell nobody. I shall ask you, when you know everything, whether you think I could have done otherwise. And please do not interrupt me till I have finished, unless there is something you don’t understand, for it won’t be very easy to get through with it. But I think I can make it intelligible.”
He was silent a moment, and I saw his face working and twitching.
“I must tell somebody,” he said, “and I choose you, unless you mind it awfully. But I simply can’t bear it alone any more.”
“Go on, then, old boy,” I said. “I’m glad you chose me, do you know. And I won’t interrupt.”