Well, the sum of it is that I talked foolishly, and went to bed feeling justified in my folly. Afterwards I recalled that Mildred had been very quiet, though whenever I paused she questioned me closely, with a flash of irritation as if she were impatient of my slowness or my lack of lucidity. At the end she flared out for a moment into the excitement I had noticed the week before; but at the time I was so engrossed in my own affairs that this scarcely struck me as unnatural. Not until the blow fell did I recall the hectic flush in her face and the quivering sound of her voice, as if she were trying not to break down and weep.
It was long before either of us got to sleep that night, and Mildred moaned a little under her breath as she sank into unconsciousness. She was not well, I knew, and I resolved again that I would see Drayton as soon as I reached Washington. Then, just before falling asleep, I became acutely aware of all the noises of the country which Mildred said had kept her awake—of the chirping of the crickets in the fireplace, of the fluttering of swallows in the chimney, of the sawing of innumerable insects in the night outside, of the croaking of frogs in the marshes, of the distant solitary hooting of an owl, of the whispering sound of wind in the leaves, of the stealthy movement of a myriad creeping lives in the ivy. Through the open window the moonlight fell in a milk-white flood, and in the darkness the old house seemed to speak with a thousand voices. As I dropped off I had a confused sensation—less a perception than an apprehension—that all these voices were urging me to something—somewhere—
The next day I was busy with a mass of evidence—dull stuff, I remember. Harrison rode over for luncheon, and not until late afternoon, when I strolled out, with my hands full of papers, for a cup of tea on the terrace, did I have a chance to see Mildred alone. Then I noticed that she was breathing quickly, as if from a hurried walk. “Did you go to meet the boat, Mildred?”
“No, I’ve been nowhere—nowhere. I’ve been on the lawn all day,” she answered sharply—so sharply that I looked at her in surprise.
In the ten years that I had lived with her I had never before seen her irritated without cause—Mildred’s disposition, I had once said, was as flawless as her profile—and I had for the first time in my life that baffled sensation which comes to men whose perfectly normal wives reveal flashes of abnormal psychology. Mildred wasn’t Mildred, that was the upshot of my conclusions; and, hang it all! I didn’t know any more than Adam what was the matter with her. There were lines around her eyes, and her sweet mouth had taken an edge of bitterness.
“Aren’t you well, dear?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m perfectly well,” she replied, in a shaking voice, “only I wish you would leave me alone!” And then she burst into tears.
While I was trying to comfort her the servant came with the tea things, and she kept him about some trivial orders until the big touring-car of one of our neighbours rushed up the drive and halted under the terrace.
In the morning Harrison motored up to Richmond with me, and on the way he spoke gravely of Mildred.
“Your wife isn’t looking well, Beckwith. I shouldn’t wonder if she were a bit seedy—and if I were you I’d get a doctor to look at her. There is a good man down at Chericoke Landing—old Pelham Lakeby. I don’t care if he did get his training in France half a century ago; he knows more than your half-baked modern scientists.”