A rush of tears relieved her. Harvey felt his own eyes grow moist.
'It was only that he felt so worn out,' she pursued. 'I know how it was. The pain grew intolerable, and he went upstairs for his draught, and then—not having finished his work—he thought he would lie down on the sofa for a little; and so sleep overcame him. He never meant this. If I thought it, I couldn't live!'
'Undoubtedly you are right,' said Harvey, summoning an accent of conviction. 'I knew him very well, and he was not the man to do that.'
'No? You are sure of it? You feel it impossible, Mr. Rolfe?'
'Quite impossible. There are men—oh, you may assure yourself that it was pure accident. Unfortunately, it happens so often.'
She hung on his words, leaning towards him, her eyes wide and lips parted.
'So often! I have seen so many cases, in the papers. And he was absent-minded. But what right have I to seek comfort for myself? Was I any less the cause of his death? But must I tell all this in public? Do you think I ought to?'
With comfortable sincerity Rolfe was able to maintain the needlessness of divulging anything beyond the state of Abbott's health and his pecuniary troubles.
'It isn't as if we had lived on ill terms with each other,' said the widow, with a sigh of gratitude. 'Anything but that. Until of late we never knew a difference, and the change that came was wholly my fault. I hadn't the honesty to speak out and say what was in my mind. I never openly opposed his wish to leave London. I pretended to agree to everything, pretended. He showed me all his reasons, put everything simply and plainly and kindly before me, and if I had said what I thought, I feel sure he would have given it up at once. It was in my own hands to decide one way or the other.'
'Why should you reproach yourself so with mere thoughts, of which he never became aware?'