‘Give this to Mrs Walcheren on her return, please,’ he said to the waiter, and took his way, as best he could, back to the Tivoli.
There he forced himself to eat a little and drink a good deal, and, calling for the bill, gave the waiter a liberal tip, and departed in a cab to the station.
He had done all he could. He should tell the Cramptons, he had called twice to interview Mrs Walcheren and been unsuccessful each time, and he had waited about Dover till four o’clock. It was Saturday, and he could not spend Sunday away from his wife and children. They would surely say that he had done all that was necessary, and more than they had required from him. He had tried to see her twice, and he had failed; they must wait now until Jenny wrote to them herself.
‘Until Jenny wrote to them herself!’ As the thought crossed his mind, Henry Hindes sunk back into the corner of the railway carriage, in the same comatose state in which he had been on the downs. The train flew screeching through the evening air, on its way to London, but time and place were alike unheeded by him.
Had it been a dream—an unholy, lurid nightmare—or was it reality?
When he reached ‘The Old Hall,’ it was nine o’clock. He told his wife he had stayed to dine in town, but, in truth, he had been wandering about the streets, hardly conscious of what he was doing, until the time warned him that each hour he delayed would make it more difficult to account for his prolonged absence. So he dragged himself home, and the effort he made to look like a man who was rather disgusted for having been foolish enough to take a lot of trouble for nothing, sat upon him much as a clown’s paint would sit upon a corpse. Hannah was naturally all sympathy for his disappointment and failure, and Hindes was compelled to take refuge in gruffness, to elude her searching inquiries.
‘My dearest, how ill you look, and how tired you seem. This has been a trying day for you, I am sure. So fond as you are of dear Jenny, too. And did you really not see her?’
‘I have told you already half-a-dozen times, Hannah, that I called twice at the Castle Warden Hotel to see her, but she was out each time, so was he, so there was nothing to be done but to return home. I did not relish the idea of wasting a Sunday in hanging about Dover, perhaps with the same result, when I might be at home with you and the chicks.’
‘Dear Henry,’ said his wife, ‘you are always so considerate of us. Still, for Jenny’s sake—if it were to lead to a reconciliation between her and her parents, I would give you up for even a longer time than that. You might have written her a letter, Henry, though.’
‘I did write, just a scribble on my card, to say I had hoped to get her to lunch with me at the Tivoli Restaurant, when we could have talked the unhappy matter over together; indeed, I had ordered lunch for two, but she was not in and they couldn’t say when she would be in, so I was obliged reluctantly to come back without seeing her. But I don’t suppose it would have been of any use. What girl would give up her lover the day after her wedding? It was a mad scheme, and quixotic in me to set out on such an errand.’