Huntley leaned with his arm along the desk and looked earnestly into Hallam’s eyes: his own eyes expressed an immense sympathy.
“Good God, Hallam!” he said.
Suddenly he grasped Hallam’s hand and wrung it hard.
“I don’t know how to tell you,” he added. “But the thing has got to be faced. Your body was found, and identified by your brother-in-law. You’ve been dead these many years. And your wife—”
“Yes?” Hallam said, in a tone of deadly quiet.
“Your wife married again, and is living in Uitenhage.”
Book Four—Chapter Thirty One.
Hallam recoiled from the news of Esmé’s marriage as a man might recoil from the effects of a blow. The thing staggered him. His first thought was to disappear again, to walk away from Huntley’s office, and turn his back for ever on the country which was home to him no longer and held no place for him. He felt dazed with grief and anger. The thought of Esmé as the wife of another man was intolerable. He could not reconcile it with his knowledge of her that she should seek consolation elsewhere. It was like some hideous nightmare, some terrible hoax, that was being practised on him for the purpose of torturing him.