We got Paul out of that dreadful lodging and into a private ward at St. Faith's. I'll never forget the way Smeaton helped. We had the very best advice, but all the doctors shook their heads over him. Some old adhesion of the lung, they said, that, under normal conditions, he might have lived till eighty and never suspected, but which privation, or a chill, or a blow, or perhaps all three, had fretted to malignity. There'd have to be an operation. It wasn't what is called a desperate one, was well within the competence of modern surgery in an ordinary case, but everything was against poor Ingram. Webber, who was watching the general condition, took no responsibility for the operation, and Tuckey, who was to do the cutting, took no responsibility for the result. As a division of responsibility, it was the neatest piece of work, I think, I have ever seen.
"It's not really strength he lacks," said Webber, after his last visit before the critical morning. "It's the vivida vis, the desire of life, that isn't there. Two grains of hope would be worth all the oxygen and beef-juice and brandy we could pump into him in a month."
I didn't confide to Webber that I'd already told Paul sixty thousand pounds was waiting till he was well enough to claim it, without seeing one shade of pleasurable emotion come into the tired, drooping eyes. As for Fenella, her name was never mentioned between us. I don't think he had any idea how much he had told me in that dark room at Chalk Farm, and I did not remind him. I had reason, soon enough, to bless my forbearance, for day followed day, and no answer to my telegram reached me. At Park Row I had found a sullen reluctance to give any information at all. She was travelling—she was on the sea—had left no instructions for forwarding. But a journalist is not to be thrown off the scent by a sulky and probably venal little slavey. Two telephone calls put me into possession of Lumsden's probable movements, and I knew I had not gone very far astray in sending the telegram to his care at Cowes. I never doubted for an instant that it had reached her hands. No; she had sought advice where advice, perhaps, was already backed by natural authority, and had decided that, under the circumstances——You see what I mean? It is true she might have written or wired asking for news. But trying to repair life's errors is a thankless task. Through the breach we are patching up the whole salt, dark ocean of destiny comes pouring and thundering about our stunned ears.
I slept little on the night before Paul's operation, and was up and moving restlessly about my rooms before the sun had risen. Who is it says, "Help cometh with the morning?" The Bible, probably. Anyway, I know I was heartened by seeing the rosy glow on the curtained windows opposite. It is a strange thing that I, who was to have no share in the day's great business, was probably up the first. Paul, I hope, was asleep, and I am sure Tuckey and Webber were. How far easier is work than waiting! The one has its seasons—a life may be wasted in the other.
I was looking out my sitting-room window, thinking this and many a deep solemn thought besides, when a big car, covered so thickly with mud and dust that its color could not be distinguished, and with the unmistakable appearance of having been driven far and furiously, swung—one might almost say dropped—into the crescent. I knew it was she. Oh, how I loathed myself for my doubt! I had the door open before she could put her foot on the steps.
She flashed into my face one mute, awful question in which I could tell the anguish of hours was concentrated, and I gave her the mute reply which says, "Not yet."
"Oh, thank God! thank God!" she said, and clasped her hands across her breast. The man in the car, stooped above the steering-wheel, did not move once nor look round.
"Can I see him now? Will he know me?"
"You won't be let see him till nine. The operation is at eleven, and there's hope. He was conscious last night but very weak. I can tell you no more."
If I sound harsh or cold, lay it to the charge of the man at the wheel.