"The man, Abram Lestwick was mad, quite mad, Harold. He made no effort to get away, he was docile and quiet, dazed and stupid. They took him before the magistrates the next day, but the doctors certified at once, he will not have his liberty again, poor creature, they say he is a homicidal maniac. Yet why—why should he have come creeping into the garden that night, why should he have attacked you, Harold, you a stranger to him?"
But it seemed that he was not listening, as though what she said had no interest for him. He lay looking at her, thinking—It was she—she in the garden with Homewood that night, she walking with Homewood, his arm about her.
He saw it all again, in memory, as he had seen it that night in reality, the man and the woman walking as lovers walk, the man's arm about the woman, her head against his shoulder—and it was Homewood and Kathleen, the husband and the wife—and he had thought—
"The doctor tells me that I shall mend soon, that I shall soon be my own man again, Kathleen, and then," he smiled, "then I shall go back."
"Need you?"
He did not answer the question. "You know why I came, what hopes I had. It was folly and the hopes are over and ended and dead—so I shall go back alone as I came. There is nothing to remain for—nothing." His hand sought hers and she put hers into it. He held it for a time and then let it go.
"So I shall go back," he said again, and said it quietly and with a fixity of purpose that she knew would never be changed.
Her eyes, filled with pity, looked down on him. Yet she knew, better that he went back, better that in the years to come they should never meet again.
Her heart ached for him, but not for herself. And then the door opened and Allan came softly to the bedside and looked down at the invalid and standing beside Kathleen his arm went round her and he never knew what suffering it meant to the man lying there.
"Kathleen has told you about Lestwick, Scarsdale? The poor wretch is hopelessly insane. There was no reason for his act, there could be none. It has all been horrible, you can imagine what our feelings have been that you, our guest, our friend——" very kind was Allan's smile as he looked down on the man who would have been his enemy, "should have to bear this. But thank God it is no worse than it is. You will be a well man again soon, Scarsdale, and then you will stay on and rest here, Kathleen will be your nurse——"