"Do you mean to tell me I never went on that accursed cruise—with a fool gun—to murder ducks ... and left my wife dangerously sick? Do you mean that Jean ... is n't ... Say, Armstrong, you would n't make game of a man in a position like mine, if you knew... Armstrong!" piteously, "my wife is n't living—is she, Armstrong?"
"She was, the last I heard," replied the dentist, sterilizing his instruments with a cool and scientific attention. "That was when you sat down in this chair to have your tooth out."
As Avery dashed by him the dentist put out a detaining hand.
"Wait a second, Avery. I don't consider you quite fit to go yet. Here—wait a minute!"
But the horses of Aurora, flying and flaming through the morning skies, could not have held the man back. A madman—delirious with joy—he swept through the hall and flung the door open. Dr. Armstrong ran after him to give him his hat, but Avery paid no attention to the dentist.
Bareheaded, fleet-footed, with quivering lip, with shining eye, he fled down the street. Like the hurricane that had never sunk the Dream, he swept past the club. He saw the fellows through the window; their cigars gleamed in their mouths and in their hands; they looked to him like marionettes moving on a mimic stage; he felt as if he would like to kick them over, and see if they would rattle as they rolled. As he rushed, hatless, past the Church of the Happy Saints, an officer on night duty recognized the lawyer, and touched his helmet in surprise, but did not follow the disordered figure—Mr. Avery was not a drinking man. He was allowed to pursue his eccentricity undisturbed. He met one or two men he knew, and they said, "Hilloa, Avery!" But he did not answer them. He ran on in the rain; his heart sang:—
"I did n't do it—I never did it! I did not treat her so. I was not that fellow. Oh, thank God, I was not that brute!" He hurried on till he lost his breath; then collected himself, and came up more quietly to his own door.
He felt for his latch-key, and was relieved to find it in his pocket, as usual; the impression that it lay off the Shoals somewhere at the bottom had not entirely vanished yet. He opened the door and closed it softly. The hall gas was burning. Otherwise the house was dark. It was perfectly still. The silence somewhat checked his mood, and the violence of his haste abated; with it abated an indefinable measure of his happiness. He raised his hand to take off his hat; then found that he had not worn any. It occurred to him that he had better not waken Jean too abruptly—it might hurt her: he was going to be very thoughtful of Jean. She must not be startled. He went upstairs quietly.
In the upper hall he paused. Pink, in the nursery, was grinding her teeth in her sleep. The baby was not restless, and Molly was sleeping heavily. From his wife's room there came no sound.
Jean almost always waked when he came home late, if indeed she had slept at all before she heard his step. But this was not inevitable. Sometimes he did not arouse her. And he remembered that to-night she had been feeble, and had not got to sleep as early as usual. As he stood uncertain before her door the clock on the mantel struck eleven.