The dark door of the snuggery at the end of the long passage closed upon Leicester and Pauline, as if upon a deep secret. In the hall, Robert Grimshaw remained standing, looking straight before him. It was, perhaps, the first time that he had ever meditated without looking at Peter, and the dog’s large and luminous eyes fixed upon his face were full of uneasiness. Robert Grimshaw had always looked mature. In the dreary illumination from the fanlight above the hall-door he seemed positively old. The healthy olive colour of his clear, pale complexion seemed to have disappeared in a deadly whiteness. And whilst he stood and thought, and whilst, having gone into the dining-room, he sat deep in a chair with Peter before him, the expression of his face deepened gradually. At each successive progress of his mind from point to point, his mouth, which was usually pursed as if he were pleasantly about to whistle—his mouth elongated itself minutely, until at last the lips turned downwards. He had been leaning back in his chair. He leaned suddenly forward as if with fear and irresolution. His eyes saw nothing when they rested upon the little brown dog that turned its quivering muzzle up to his face.
He rose and stood irresolutely. He went setting down his feet very gently on the marble squares of the hall. It was as if he crept to the door of the room that held mystery. He could hear the voices of the servants and a faint clicking of silver being laid upon a tray. But from the room ... nothing!
He stood listening for a long time, then gently he turned the handle and entered, standing near the door. Pauline Leicester was leaning over her husband, who was sunk deep into his chair. He had an odd, a grotesque aspect, of being no more than so many clothes carelessly thrown down. She looked for a moment round at Robert Grimshaw, and then again bent her tender face over her husband.
“Dudley, dear,” she said; “don’t you hear? It’s nothing. It’s all nothing. Listen!” She raised her voice to repeat: “It is all nothing. I have nothing against you.”
She remained seated on the arm of the chair, looking at him intently, mournfully, almost as Peter looked at his master, and the little dog paddling through the room stood up on its hind-legs to touch her hand with the tip of its tongue. She began to speak again, uttering the same words, repeating and repeating them, hoping that some at least would reach his brain. He sat entirely still, hunched together, his eyes looking as if they were veiled and long dead. Pauline had ceased speaking again, when suddenly he passed his hand down his face from brow to chin, and then, as if the sudden motion gave her the idea that his brain might again have become alert, she repeated:
“Listen, Dudley dear....”
Her voice, clear and minute, continuing in a low monotone, had the little flutings and little catches that so exactly and so exquisitely fitted the small quaintnesses of expression. And to Robert Grimshaw she appeared to look downwards upon Dudley, not as if she were expecting him to answer, but with a tender expression of a mother looking at a child many months before it can talk.
And suddenly she let herself down from the arm of the chair and glided over to where, in the gloom, Robert Grimshaw was standing beside the door. The little brown dog flapped after her over the floor.
“You had better go and get a doctor,” she said.
He answered hesitatingly: “Isn’t it a little early?” He added: “Isn’t it a little early to take it that he’s definitely ill?”