She crossed the room then to the sofa where he lay, and sitting down beside him, took his head and laid it on her bosom. As he felt the warm touch, he clung to her, as a child clings to its mother in the dark.
‘Don’t be afraid, dear,’ she said softly. ‘Neither servants nor friends shall gain access to you at such times. I guard you too well for that. Should you be downstairs, I take you to your bedroom; if the fit comes on whilst you are in your own room, I lock the door. Have no fear on that score. I will never leave you whilst you are true to yourself.’
He sunk his face lower and lower in her bosom, and kissed her arm and her shoulder and any part of her that came within his reach.
‘Don’t leave me, don’t leave me,’ he murmured, ‘my only hope is in you.’
‘But, Henry,’ said Hannah, thinking this a favourable opportunity for remonstrance, ‘are you not taking too much morphia, or brandy, or something, for your health? You must be careful, or you will circumvent the object you have in view.’
‘I must take it, Hannah! I must! I have such dreadful dreams without it. I cannot sleep, or think, or act. It is my salvation. You mustn’t take it from me.’
‘No! no! I had no thought of that, and if you suffer from neuralgia, I do not see how you could go through your daily work without some sort of remedy. Only morphia is dangerous if taken in too large quantities, and you mustn’t cloud your active brain, or where will the business be?’
‘How I hate the business,’ he said. ‘Hannah, we have more than enough for our need. Couldn’t we go away together somewhere; all together, and let me begin a new life? Out in Australia, or New Zealand, in a purer air, you would trust me with the children, wouldn’t you? I will be so good, darling, if you would. I will try so hard not to bring any further disgrace upon their name, or yours. But here life is killing me. It is so full of bitter memories—bitter associations. Sometimes I feel as if I could cry on these stones of Hampstead to cover me; I feel so desperate. But in a newer air and amidst new scenes, perhaps—if you will let me have the children—I may—forget.’
The tears were running fast down Hannah’s cheeks by this time. The man she held in her arms was no longer the one she had feared and shrunk from, and almost loathed in her contempt, for months past, but the lover of her girlhood—the husband of her youth—the father of her children—and her heart went out with a mighty compassion towards him, notwithstanding his weakness and his sin.
‘Would you come with me?’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Would you try to forget everything, but that once we loved each other very dearly?’