"Must have been in my sleep then," said Henry yawning, then suddenly conscious of his shabby and faded pyjamas.
"Can't say, I'm sure, sir . . . knocked loud enough for anything. No letters this morning, sir."
Henry was still at the innocent and optimistic age when letters are an excitement and a hope. He always felt that the world was deliberately, for malicious and cruel reasons of its own, forgetting him when there were no letters.
He was splashing in his tin bath, his bony and angular body like a study for an El Greco, when he remembered. Tuesday—nine o'clock. Why? . . . What! . . . Duncombe's operation.
He hurried then as he had never hurried before, gulping down his tea, choking over his egg, flinging on his clothes, throwing water on his head and plastering it down, tumbling down the stairs into the street.
A clock struck the half-hour as he hastened into Berkeley Square. He had now no thought but for his beloved master; every interest in life had faded before that. He seemed to be with him there in the nursing home. He could watch it all, the summoning, the procession into the operating theatre, the calm, white-clad surgeon, the nurses, the anaesthetic. . . . His hand was on the Hill Street door bell. He hesitated, trembling. The street was so still in the misty autumn morning, a faint scent in the air of something burning, of tar, of fading leaves. A painted town, a painted sky and some figures in the foreground, breathlessly waiting.
The old butler opened the door. He turned back as Henry entered, pointing to the dark and empty hall as though that stood for all that he could say.
"Well?" said Henry. "Is there any news yet?"
"Sir Charles died under the operation. . . . Her ladyship has just been rung up——"