She started up listening, for a cab had stopped at the gate, and her first impulse was to go to the door; but she sank back wearily, and listened for the clang of the gate and the rattle of the latch-key in the door.
She had not long to wait, and she was preparing herself for her husband’s coming, when the door was shut loudly. There was a scuffling sound in the little hall, and as she turned pale with alarm, dreading some new trouble, there was a strange voice. The door was flung open, and, supported by his friend Wrigley, Jessop Reed staggered into the room.
Both men were in evening dress, Wrigley’s faultless, his glass in his eye, and the flower in his button-hole unfaded, while Jessop’s shirt front was crumpled and wine-stained, and his flushed face told of the number of times the glass had been raised to his lips. As he entered the little drawing-room he made a staggering lurch towards a chair, and would have fallen, as his hat did, but for the tight hold which Wrigley kept of his arm.
“Now, then,” he cried resentfully; “what’s the matter? Don’t get hauling a man all over the room like that.”
“Really I am very sorry,” said Wrigley, guiding Jessop into the chair and taking off his hat, “but the fact is, Mrs Reed, Jessop here was quite out of order when I met him this evening to attend a dinner at the Crystal Palace.”
“Yes. Dinner at Crystal Palace. But that’ll do. You leave my wife alone, Mr Solicitor.”
“Yes, yes, dear boy. Let me get you up to bed.”
“What for? I’m all right.”
“You will be after a night’s rest, my dear Jessop. There’s nothing much the matter, Mrs Reed. Pray don’t be alarmed. The wine was rather bad, too. I really think I drank more of it than he did.”
Janet was standing looking from one to the other with her eyes full of the misery and despair in her breast. Miserable as her life had been, full of bickering and quarrel, reproach and neglect, she had never yet seen her husband like this; and for a few moments she was ready to believe in his companion’s words.