But further conversation was cut short by the entrance of Bill and her husband.
“Twelve miles if an inch,” growled Drage, throwing himself into a chair. “You awful fellow.”
Sibton laughed.
“Do you good, you lazy devil. He’s getting too fat, Phyllis, isn’t he?”
I glanced at him as he, too, sat down: in his eyes there remained no trace of the terror of the morning.
III
And now I come to that part of my story which I find most difficult to write. From the story-teller’s point of view pure and simple, it is the easiest; from the human point of view I have never tackled anything harder. Because, though the events I am describing took place months ago—and the first shock is long since past—I still cannot rid myself of a feeling that I was largely to blame. By the cold light of reason I can exonerate myself; but one does not habitually have one’s being in that exalted atmosphere. Jack blames himself; but in view of what happened the night before—in view of the look in Bill’s eyes that Sunday morning—I feel that I ought to have realised that there were influences at work which lay beyond my ken—influences which at present lie not within the light of reason. And then at other times I wonder if it was not just a strange coincidence and an—accident. God knows: frankly, I don’t.
We spent that evening just as we had spent the preceding one, save that in view of shooting on Monday morning we went to bed at midnight. This time I fell asleep at once—only to be roused by someone shaking my arm. I sat up blinking: it was Jack Drage.
“Wake up, Tom,” he whispered. “There’s a light in the dining-room, and we’re going down to investigate. Dick is getting Bill.”
In an instant I was out of bed.