Esmé’s accident, and the contemporaneous and mysterious disappearance of Hallam, brought Rose in haste and at great personal inconvenience round to Cape Town. She was terribly worried about her sister, and enormously concerned at Hallam’s departure at a time when it seemed to her his presence was urgently needed.
Her concern deepened as the days passed, the weeks passed, and still there was no word from him, no news of his whereabouts. The information which the Garfields furnished on their return gave a sinister aspect to the look of things. And Esmé as she got better was continually asking for her husband. She fretted at his absence; and when ultimately she was allowed to have the letter he had left for her, though she ceased to ask for him, she fretted more than before.
The contents of the letter, which she refused to allow any one else to read, upset her greatly. It elucidated nothing of the mystery of his complete disappearance, but merely informed her that he had gone away for an indefinite time. She felt assured from her knowledge of him that he would never return until he was master of himself.
Her heart was nigh to breaking with her longing for him, and with pity, pity for the suffering which she knew he was enduring: his agony of mind must be terrible. She wanted to see him, to put her arms about him and bid him think no more of what was past. It was grievous to her to think of him alone with heart and mind heavy with sorrow and remorse. If only she could be with him she would help him to forget. The injury to herself seemed to her so small a part of the trouble; it was so entirely accidental: largely her own carelessness was responsible for her fall; if she had been on her guard it need not have happened. She believed that if she could talk to him she could make him see this. She wanted to help him, to comfort him. And she wanted him beside her, wanted his love, his presence, with a feverish urgency that burned like a fever in her veins, and left her sick with unsatisfied longing as the days dragged by without bringing him, without bringing news of him even. If he had died he could not have vanished more completely out of her life.
Her sister urged her to return with her to the Bay until she was stronger and more fitted to be alone; but Esmé preferred to remain in her own home.
“Any day he may return,” she said. “I would not like him to come back and find me gone.”
“He would understand,” Rose said sensibly. “At least he would know where to look for you.”
She did not herself believe that her brother-in-law would return. The whole affair was to her mysterious and inexplicable.
“Did you quarrel with Paul?” she asked bluntly.
Esmé lifted astonished eyes to the questioner’s face.