"Jane has begged me not to. I am going to sleep with her," she answered.
CHAPTER IV. "BY THE HAND OF GOD"
Sir Walter always remembered that Sunday luncheon and declared that it reminded him of a very painful experience in his early life. When big-game shooting in South Africa, he had once been tossed by a wounded buffalo bull. By good chance the creature threw him into a gully some feet lower than the surrounding bush. Thus it lost him, and he was safe from destruction. There, however, he remained with a broken leg for some hours until rescued; and during that time the mosquitoes caused him unspeakable torments.
To-day the terrible disaster of the morning became temporarily overshadowed by the necessity of enduring his friends' comments upon it. The worst phase of the ordeal was their pity. Sir Walter had never been pitied in his life, and detested the experience. This stream of sympathy and the chastened voices much oppressed him. He was angry with himself also, for a guilty conviction that, in truth, the interest of the visitors exceeded their grief. He felt it base to suspect them of any such thing; but the buzz of their polite expressions, combined with their cautious questions and evident thirst for knowledge, caused him exquisite uneasiness.
They all wanted to know everything he could tell them concerning Tom May. Had he enemies? Was it conceivable that he might have even bitter and unscrupulous enemies?
"Dear Mary is keeping up splendidly," said Mrs. Travers. "She is magnificent. Thank Heaven I have been some little help to her."
"You have, Nelly, without a doubt."
"Do try to eat more, Walter," urged Ernest Travers. "Much lies before you. Indeed, the worst has yet to come. You must keep up for all our sakes. How thankfully I would share your load if I could!"
"I hope you are going to make this an official matter, Sir Walter, and communicate with the Society for Psychical Research," urged Felix Fayre-Michell. "It is just a case for them. In fact, when this gets known widely, as it must, of course, a great many skilled inquirers will wish to visit Chadlands and spend a night in the room."