He did not exactly know what he ought to do. He looked round, hoping for some suggestion from the constable; but Moriarty had slipped quietly from the room. Mr. Goddard made a hasty and impassioned vow that he would give Constable Moriarty a severe lesson in the respect due to his superior officer. Then he looked at Miss Blow again. She was sobbing convulsively. He watched her helplessly for several minutes, and then asked her if she would like a cup of tea. He had to repeat the question twice, because, owing to nervousness, he was inaudible the first time he asked it. Miss Blow, when she heard what he said, shook her head vigorously. Mr. Goddard felt that there must have been something insulting about the suggestion, and was sorry he had made it. He wished very much that he knew how to behave under the circumstances. By way of relieving the tension of the situation he got up and stood behind Miss Blow. Then he walked round her chair and stood in front of her. Neither position availed to check her weeping. Her head was bowed almost to her lap and her face was covered with her hands. It occurred to him that it might soothe her if he patted her back and shoulders gently. He stretched out his hand. Then he paused. He was a man of chivalrous feeling towards women, the result perhaps of reading Tennyson’s poetry, and it struck him that it would be unfair to pat a girl who was obviously incapable of resisting. He stood irresolute, his hand still stretched out. His attitude was not unlike that of a priest who bestows a benediction upon a deeply contrite penitent.
“Miss Blow,” he said at last, “please stop crying.”
Curiously enough this appeal produced its effect upon her.
“How can I help crying,” she said, though her utterance was broken with sobs, “when he’s dead, and no one will help me even to find his body?”
Mr. Goddard’s resolution was taken in an instant. He did not believe that Dr. O’Grady was dead. He knew that he was laying up trouble for himself in the future; but it was absolutely necessary to stop Miss Blow crying and, if possible, to get her out of the house.
“I’ll help you,” he said. “I’ll do all that can be done to find him. I shall put all the men in my district to work. I shall leave no place unsearched until I find him, alive or dead.”
Miss Blow looked up at him, and smiled through her tears. Even an ordinary girl, with no particular pretensions to beauty, looks very charming when she succeeds in smiling and crying at the same time. Miss Blow seemed radiantly lovely. Mr. Goddard felt that he was losing command of himself. He felt strongly inclined to quote some poetry. He knew that there must be poetry suitable to the situation, but for the moment he could think of nothing except four lines out of Maud.
“Oh, that ’twere possible
After long grief and pain,
To feel the arms of my true love
Around me once again.”
There was a certain appropriateness about the verses, and yet he hesitated to quote them. He was not sure that Miss Blow would care to admit in plain words to a total stranger that she wanted Dr. O’Grady’s arms round her. Miss Blow saved him from his uncertainty. She gave her eyes two rapid dabs with her wet pocket-handkerchief, and said—
“When shall we start?”