And now Dick Edmonstone was being whirled back to London. Alice was declared out of danger, so he had come away. Alice was not going to die. Her young life was spared. Then why was Dick's heart not filled with joy and thanksgiving? Perhaps it was; but why did he not show it? He who had been frenzied by her peril, should have leapt or wept for joy at her safety. He did neither. He could show no joy. Why not?
Edmonstone arrived in town, and broke his fast at an hotel—he had travelled all night. After breakfast he drove, with his luggage, first to the offices of the P. and O. Company in Leadenhall Street. He stepped from that office with a brisker air; something was off his mind; something was definitely settled. On his way thence to Waterloo he whistled lively tunes in the cab. By the time he reached Teddington and Iris Lodge, the jauntiness of his manner was complete. In fact, his manner was so entirely different from what his mother and Fanny had been prepared for, that the good ladies were relieved and delighted beyond measure for the first few minutes, until a something in his tone pained them both.
"Oh yes," he said, carelessly, in answer to their hushed inquiry, "she is out of danger now, safe enough. It has been touch and go, though."
He might have been speaking of a horse or dog, and yet have given people the impression that he was a young man without much feeling.
"But—my boy," cried Mrs. Edmonstone, "what has been the matter with you? We never heard that you were ill; and you look like a ghost, my poor Dick!"
Dick was standing in rather a swaggering attitude on the hearthrug. He wheeled round, and looked at himself in the large glass over the chimneypiece. His face was haggard and lined, and his expression just then was not a nice one.
"Why," he owned, with a grating laugh, "I certainly don't look very fit, now you mention it, do I? But it's all on the surface. I'm all right, bless you! I'm not on speaking terms with the sexton yet, anyway!"
A tear stood in each of Mrs. Edmonstone's dark eyes. Fanny frowned, and beat her foot impatiently upon the carpet. What had come over Dick?
He must have known perfectly well the utter falsity of the mask he was wearing; if not, self-deception was one of his accomplishments. Or perhaps those tears in his mother's eyes caused a pang of shame to shoot through him. In any case, he made a hasty effort to change his tone.
"How are you two? That is the main point with me. Bother my seediness!"