“It’s this stupid headache,” she said apologetically. “Paul, you won’t be late? The wind makes me nervous.”
“Brave person!” he returned, smiling at her indulgently. He removed the wrap from her shoulders and threw it over his arm. “I will be up before you are asleep.”
He watched her mount the stairs. When she reached the landing she paused to smile down at him before entering her room. He turned away and went into his study, switching on the light as he entered. He became aware that he was still carrying his wife’s wrap, and placed the flimsy thing over the back of a chair, and stood hesitating, looking towards his easy chair, with the table beside it littered with books and the reading-lamp in the centre. He touched the switch of the lamp and turned off the brighter light and remained, still in indecision, looking no longer at the chair but beyond it towards a cupboard, the key of which he carried always upon him. He felt in his pocket for the key, and remained staring at it in his hand and reflecting deeply. His devil tempted him sorely. Against his volition his gaze travelled to the flimsy thing of gauze and fur which lay as a mute reminder of his wife where he had dropped it on entering, and in imagination he heard again the plaintive note of her question: “Paul, you won’t be late?” as she had turned and looked back at him from the stairs. He had promised to follow her shortly.
Frowning, he turned the key in his hand. For a while he remained still irresolute while his will slowly weakened and his craving increased; then with an abrupt movement he advanced swiftly and, stooping, inserted the key in the cupboard door.
Book Three—Chapter Twenty Five.
Midnight struck and still the wind raged without, while inside the house complete silence reigned. One o’clock struck. The gale was at its height; the noise of the wind was terrific: it swept past the lighted window of Hallam’s study and shook the glass as though something alive were out in the storm and seeking refuge from the fury of the wind. But the occupant of the room neither stirred nor looked round: he sat with a book open on the table before him, and a glass at his elbow towards which his shaking hand reached forth at regular and frequent intervals. He had forgotten his promise to his wife, had forgotten the hour; he sat in a semi-stupor, and took no heed of time or place. Whether he read, and, if he did read, whether his drugged brain took hold of the sense of the printed matter on which his eyes rested, was uncertain; but every now and again he turned a page of the book without raising his glance even when his hand reached out for the glass from which he drank: he only looked up to refill the glass from a decanter on the table.
The minutes ticked on relentlessly, and the clock on the mantelpiece chimed the half-hour after one. A light footfall descending the stairs, so light that it could not be heard above the noise of the wind, did not disturb the reader; nor did he appear to see when the door of the room was pushed wider and Esmé with a dressing-gown worn over her nightdress and her hair in a heavy plait over her shoulder, stood framed in the doorway, a shrinking slender figure, looking towards him with wide, anguished eyes. She advanced swiftly and stood beside him and rested a hand on his shoulder.
“Paul!” she said.