“And what did he answer?”
“Oh, it only made him angrier. He said: ‘I never expected that from you’—that was when he rushed out of the house.” Her tears flowed over, and seeing her so genuinely perturbed I restrained my impatience, and took leave after a few words of sympathy.
Never had Harpledon seemed to me more like a tea-cup than with that silly tempest convulsing it. That there should be grown-up men who could lose their self-command over such rubbish, and women to tremble and weep with them! For a moment I felt the instinctive irritation of normal man at such foolishness; yet before I reached my own door I was as mysteriously perturbed as Mrs. Durant.
The truth was, I had never thought of Cranch as likely to lose his balance over trifles. He had never struck me as unmanly; his quiet manner, his even temper, showed a sound sense of the relative importance of things. How then could so petty an annoyance have thrown him into such disorder?
I stopped short on my threshold, remembering his face as he brushed past me. “Something is wrong; really wrong,” I thought. But what? Could it be jealousy of Mrs. Durant and the Boston architect? The idea would not bear a moment’s consideration, for I remembered her face too. “Oh, well, if it’s his silly punctilio,” I grumbled, trying to reassure myself, and remaining, after all, as much perplexed as before.
All the next day it poured, and I sat at home among my books. It must have been after ten in the evening when I was startled by a ring. The maids had gone to bed, and I went to the door, and opened it to Mrs. Durant. Surprised at the lateness of her visit, I drew her in out of the storm. She had flung a cloak over her light dress, and the lace scarf on her head dripped with rain. Our houses were only a few hundred yards apart, and she had brought no umbrella, nor even exchanged her evening slippers for heavier shoes.
I took her wet cloak and scarf and led her into the library. She stood trembling and staring at me, her face like a marble mask in which the lips were too rigid for speech; then she laid a sheet of note-paper on the table between us. On it was written, in Waldo Cranch’s beautiful hand: “My dear friend, I am going away on a journey. You will hear from me,” with his initials beneath. Nothing more. The letter bore no date.
I looked at her, waiting for an explanation. None came. The first word she said was: “Will you come with me—now, at once?”
“Come with you—where?”
“To his house—before he leaves. I’ve only just got the letter, and I daren’t go alone....”