‘No, thanks, dear. We shall get home quicker by the Metropolitan. We shall see you again soon. Good-night!’ and, with his wife’s arm snugly tucked under his own, Captain Hindes walked off again.
As soon as she was sure that they were gone, Hannah sat down and indulged in the luxury of ‘a good cry.’ It was seldom that she permitted her feelings to get the better of her, but this interview had upset her.
The semi-deceit she had been compelled to practise—the determination of Captain Hindes to find out what was the matter with his brother, and the evident suspicion with which he had received her statements, all combined to make her fear that a crisis of some sort was at hand. She dreaded what her husband might do or say if his brother pressed him too hard for an explanation of the alteration in his demeanour and appearance. His brain was at times so muddled, even in the day-time, that he spoke more like a madman than a sane person, and if Arthur took it upon himself to consult medical men on Henry’s behalf, or to have him privately watched, what terrible dénouement might not be the consequence. She wished heartily that her brother and sister-in-law had not returned home just at that particular moment, that they had given her time to coax her husband to leave England for a while, as he had seemed so well disposed to do, but wishing was futile. They were there, in their midst, and she must set all her wits to work to conceal the real state of affairs from them.
She visited her husband’s bed-chamber at once, to find him sunk into a slumber, from which she could only rouse him to a semi-torpid condition. So she wisely let him sleep until the morning, when he was able to listen to her story, and conceive a hazy idea that his brother and his wife had paid The Old Hall a visit whilst he was asleep.
When Captain Arthur Hindes walked into the office the following day, he found his brother had not yet arrived. Naturally he was well-known there, by Mr Bloxam and all the older employés of the firm, and he received a hearty welcome, for he was a general favourite. Arthur was taller and fairer than Henry—had a handsomer face and a neater figure—was possessed, moreover, of a bright, happy temperament, and had always a kind word or a jest on hand.
‘Not arrived yet?’ he exclaimed in answer to Bloxam’s intimation of the ‘governor’s’ absence, ‘and nearly half-past twelve! What makes him so late, Bloxam? He used to be called “the early bird” at one time.’
‘Ah! Master Arthur, things are changed since then,’ replied the old cashier. ‘Mr Henry’s not been nearly so active of late. I often think he’s not well. He seems so mopey and dull. Perhaps it will be different now you’ve come home, Mr Arthur. You’ll cheer him up a bit. He has felt Mr Crampton’s death terribly, and Miss Jenny’s too, for the matter of that, they came so quickly, one after the other, and he ought to have taken a change long ago. I’m very glad you’ve come back, sir. You’ll do him more good than anyone else could do.’
‘I am glad also, Bloxam, for Mrs Hindes’s account of him quite alarmed me. But do you think he is really ill?’
‘I think he is very, very ill, Mr Arthur,’ returned Bloxam, mysteriously; ‘but here he is, so I will leave you together.’
Saying thus, the cashier retreated by a side door into his particular sanctum, as the glass doors from the front swung slowly on their hinges, as though propelled by an enfeebled hand, to admit Henry Hindes. He entered, looking much as he had always done of late, slouching along with a bent figure and a shaking frame. He had made some attempt, at the instigation of his wife, to brighten up his general appearance by assuming a frock coat and a tall hat, but they only served to make the difference in him more apparent. Captain Hindes could not for a moment believe the evidence of his senses, but when he was convinced that it was his brother who stood before him, he started forward to greet him with a slight cry.