Rose was beside him in an instant, her arms round him, her own tears driven back.
“It’ll be all right, Ces. Don’t—don’t. I understand, truly I do. Don’t tell me any more.”
Cecil was screaming under his breath, horribly.
Rose, still kneeling on the stone floor, looked up at Lucian.
“Let him have it out,” the doctor said gently. “Call me, if you want me for anything.”
He stepped outside into the passage once more, closing the door behind him.
He was conscious of a veritable sickness of dismay. It seemed to him, momentarily, that it was himself that was invaded by overwhelming humiliation, that he was openly convicted of that ignoble attempted imposture.
The distant whirr of a telephone struck upon his hearing without penetrating to his consciousness, but in a few moments he was approached by a uniformed figure.
“Dr. Lucian?”
“Yes.”