To the news concerning May Tomalin, he gave scarcely a thought. Mr. Yabsley, of Northampton!
Exceeding weariness sank him for a few hours in sleep; but before dawn he was tossing again on the waves of miserable doubt. Why had he not waited a little before going to see Iris? If only he had received this letter of Mrs. Toplady in time, it would have checked him—or so he thought. Was it the malice of fate which had ordained that, on his way to Eastbourne, he should not have troubled to look in at his lodgings? How many such wretched accidents he could recall! Was he, instead of being fortune's favourite, simply a poor devil hunted by ill luck, doomed to lose every chance? Why not he as well as another? Such men abound.
He had not yet taken the irretrievable step. Until he was actually married, a hope remained to him. He might postpone the fatal day; his purse was not yet empty. Why should he be too strict in the report of his election expenses to Constance? Every pound in his pocket meant a prolongation of liberty, a new horizon of the possible—
Two days later he was back again at Eastbourne. He had taken a cheap little lodging, and yielded himself to sea-side indolence. A week passed, then Iris heard from Mrs. Toplady. She did not at once show Lashmar the letter; she awaited a moment when he was lulled by physical comfort into a facile and sanguine humour.
"Mrs. Toplady must have been in a hurry when she wrote this," was her remark, as, with seeming carelessness, she produced the letter. "Of course she has an enormous correspondence. I shall hear again from her, no doubt, before long."
One side only of the note-paper was covered. In formal phrase, the writer said that she was glad to hear of her friend's engagement, and wished her all happiness. Not a word about their future meeting; not an allusion to Lashmar's prospects. If Iris had announced her coming marriage with some poor clerk, Mrs. Toplady could not have written less effusively.
"There's an end of her interest in me," Dyce remarked, with a nervous shrug.
Iris protested, and did her best to put another aspect on the matter, but without success. For twenty-four hours, Lashmar kept away from her; she, offended, tried to disregard his absence, but at length sped to make inquiries, fearful lest he should be driven to despair. At the murky end of a wet evening, they paced the esplanade together.
"You don't love me," said Iris, on a sob.
"It is because I love you," he replied, glooming, "that I can't bear to think of you married to such a luckless fellow as I am."