"Come along," he said hoarsely. "Thank Heaven, I recollect it at last. But we have not a moment to lose, for the secret might be discovered at any moment. Why are you standing there staring? Why don't you do what I tell you? You have been drinking again."
Ethel sprang to the wall and rang the bell. At the same moment Rent dropped his burden on the floor and once more lapsed into the old sullen state of mind.
CHAPTER XXXIV
A BLACK SUSPICION
There was no occasion for Ethel Hargrave to be afraid. There had been no suggestion of violence on the part of her patient, but yet, in some unaccountable way, she felt her heart sinking and her nerves throbbing as if the shadow of a great disgrace was hanging over her. She had ceased to care for Arnold Rent; indeed, she was almost grateful to him for showing her that she had made a mistake in her estimate of his character. All these years she had lived so quiet a life, she had seen so few men, that she had come to regard Arnold Rent as typical of what was best in his sex. In this she had been encouraged by Mrs. Rent's pride and delight in the progress of her son. Ethel thought she was fortunate above women, inasmuch as she would some day become the wife of Arnold Rent. The whole thing had been a tacit understanding, and at first when disillusion came the pain had been smart and keen.
But this was due to wounded vanity, though Ethel did not know it. It was her first contact with the meaner side of human nature and it left its mark. Despite the fact that Ethel had lived so long alone, she had read a great deal and knew much of the world and its ways. It did not need anyone to teach her that Arnold Rent had behaved foolishly in the matter of Mrs. Charlock, and since then one or two little things had opened Ethel's eyes.
She was glad the disclosure had come before it was too late. She could only regard Arnold Rent in the light of a friend, and found herself contrasting him with John Charlock, much to his detriment.
And now she could not rid herself of the idea that there was something more than mere hallucination here. The blow which Rent had received would be hardly accountable for his acting in this fashion. Undoubtedly, the man had something desperate on his mind. He had every appearance of it in the uneasy, haunted expression of his face and the gleam of his eyes. Something was fearfully wrong, and Ethel felt her heart sink as she watched the moody, disconsolate figure seated in the chair opposite her. What it was he had to conceal she did not know, nor could she manage, with all the patience at her command, to find out what was amiss.
"Is there nothing I can do for you?" she asked.
Rent shook his head sulkily. The mass of matter which he had removed from the safe lay on the floor, but he took no notice of it. The cloud had fallen again.