“Better not. I sha’n’t help you, at any rate. I’m going to try to get her to go back to her husband.”
“What!” bellowed Southerley. “To shut herself up with that unbearable old fossil, who—who—who—”
Bayre did not answer, for it suddenly occurred to him that there was a mystery about his uncle which he should like to have solved before attempting to bring about even the most half-hearted reconciliation.
Southerley was walking up and down the little room at a great rate.
“What good would it do,” he asked, turning sharply, “to get her to shut herself up again with a man who’s at least half a lunatic? You know very well I shouldn’t say this if there were the least chance of a real reconciliation between them. But knowing what you do know about your uncle, you must feel as sure as I do that to shut these two unhappy creatures, the mother and the child, in the same house with him would only be to drive at least the woman into the same condition of half-wittedness that he has reached himself.”
Bayre rubbed his head distractedly. He could not but have doubts of the same kind himself.
“Well, well, how do you know that it isn’t the feeling that he’s driven away his wife and child that has made my uncle what he now is?” suggested he.
“Rot!” said Southerley, laconically.
This being Bayre’s opinion also, he forbore to remonstrate with his friend upon his extremely vulgar retort.
“At any rate it would be better for her than to—to—to—”