A sudden sickness assailed him as he waited for the maid to open the door. Anne had been made a widow. He, not God, was responsible for this new phase in her life. Had he not put a dreadful charge upon her conscience? Had he not forced her to share the responsibility with him? And, while the rest of the world might forever remain in ignorance, would it ever be possible for her to hide the truth from herself?
She knew what it all meant, and she had offered to share the consequences with him, no matter what course his judgment led him to pursue. He had not considered her until this instant as a partner in the undertaking, but now he realised that she must certainly be looking upon herself as such. His heart sank. He had made a hideous mistake. He should not have gone to her. She could not justify herself by the same means that were open to him.
From her point of view, he had killed her husband, and with her consent!
He found himself treating the dead man in a curiously detached fashion, and not as his own blood-relation. Her husband, that was the long and the short of his swift reflections, not his grandfather. All her life she would remember that she had supported him in an undertaking that had to do with the certain death of her husband, and no matter how merciful, how sensible that act may have been, or how earnestly he may have tried to see his way clear to follow a course opposed to the one he had taken, the fact remained that she had acknowledged herself prepared for just what subsequently happened in the operating room.
Going back to the beginning, Templeton Thorpe's death was in her mind the day she married him. It had never been a question with her as to how he should die, but when. But this way to the desired end could never have been included in her calculations. This was not the way out.
She had been forced to take a stand with him in this unhappy business, and she would have to pay a cost that he could not share with her, for his conscience was clear. What were her thoughts to-day? With what ugly crime was she charging herself? Was she, in the secrecy of her soul, convicting herself of murder? Was that what he had given her to think about all the rest of her life?
The servant was slow in answering the bell. They always are at the homes of doctors.
"Is Dr. Bates at home?"
"Office hours from eight to nine, and four to six."
"Say that Dr. Thorpe wishes to see him."