Ludowika's manner toward him became self-possessed, even animated; and, Howat thought, preoccupied. She was expectant, with a slightly impatient air, as if she were looking beyond his shoulder. The cause occurred to him in a flash that ignited his anger like a ready-charged explosive. She was waiting, desiring, the return of her husband. Felix Winscombe, she thought, would mean—escape. He used the word deliberately, realizing that that now expressed her attitude toward the Province, toward him. It made no difference in his feeling for her, his determination that nothing should take her from him. His power of detachment vanished; he became utterly the instrument of his passion.
He didn't press upon her small expressions of his emotion; somehow, without struggle, she had made them seem foolish; beyond that they were inadequate. He was conscious of the approach of a great climax; his feeling was above the satisfaction of trivial caresses. Soon, he told himself, soon he would absolutely possess her, for as long as they lived. Ultimately she must be happy with him. He thought the same things in a ceaseless round; he walked almost without sight, discharging mechanically the routine of daily existence; answering inevitable queries in a perfunctory, dull voice. Myrtle Forge made a distant background of immaterial colours and sounds for the slightly mocking figure of Ludowika.
In mid-afternoon David arrived with a face stung scarlet by beating wind, and a clatter of hoofs. He immediately found Gilbert Penny, and the two men sat together with grave faces, lowered voices. Howat, who had left the counting house at the sound of the hurried approach, caught a few words as he drew near the others:
"... a bad attack, crumpled him up. Coming out from the city now." They were talking about Felix Winscombe, who, it appeared, had been assaulted by a knife-like pain; and was returning to Myrtle Forge. "Watlow saw no reason why it should be dangerous," David continued; "he thinks perhaps it came from unusual exertions, entertaining. A little rest, he says. He thinks the Winscombes will be able to sail on the Lindamira as they planned."
Ludowika listened seriously to Gilbert Penny's few, temperate words of preparation. "He has had a pain like that before," she told them. "It always passes away. Felix is really very strong, in spite of his age. He won't ordinarily go to bed, but I'll insist on that now, simply for rest." Felix Winscombe appeared at the supper hour. He was helped out of Abner Forsythe's leather-hung chaise, and assisted into the house. Howat saw him under the hanging lamp in the hall; with a painful surprise he realized that he was gazing at the haggard face of an old man. Before he had never connected the thought of definite age with Mr. Winscombe. The man's satirical virility had forbidden any of the patronage unconsciously extended to the aged.
A trace of his familiar, mocking smile remained, but it was tremulous; it required, Howat saw, great effort. An involuntary admiration possessed him for the other's unquenchable courage. The latter protested vehemently against being led to his room by Ludowika; but she ignored his determination to go into supper, swept him away with a firm arm about his waist.
The house took on the slightly strange and disordered aspect of illness; voices were grave, low; in the morning Howat learned that Felix Winscombe had had another vicious attack in the night. Dr. Watlow arrived, and demanded assistance. Howat Penny, in the room where Ludowika's husband lay exhausted in a bed canopied and draped in gay India silk, followed Watlow's actions with a healthy feeling of revulsion. The doctor bared Winscombe's spare chest, then filled a shallow, thick glass with spirits; emptying the latter, he set fire to the interior of the glass; and, when the blue flame had expired, clapped the cupped interior over the prostrate man's heart. There was, it seemed, little else that could be done; bleeding was judged for the once unexpeditious.
An effort at commonplace conversation was maintained at dinner. Ludowika openly discussed the arrangements for their return to London. Felix Winscombe had rallied from the night; his wife said that it was difficult to restrain him. The most comfortable provisions, she continued, had been made for their passage on the Lindamira. Howat heard her without resentment. He had no wish to contradict her needlessly even in thought; he was immovably fixed. Mr. Winscombe's debilitated return had completely upset his intentions. An entirely different proceeding would now be demanded, but with an identical end. What pity he felt for the elder had no power to reach or alter his passion.
He returned to the counting house, and worked methodically through the afternoon, with an increasing sense of being involved in an irresistible movement. This gave him a feeling almost of tranquillity; from the beginning he had not been responsible. In the face of illness the Italian servant proved utterly undependable; he cringed, stricken with dread, from the spectacle of suffering. And when late in the day Mr. Winscombe, partially drugged with opium, grew consciously weaker, Howat's assistance was required.
Ludowika now remained in the room with her husband, and there was a discreet movement in and out by various members of the household. Isabel Penny remained for an hour, Caroline took her place, Myrtle fluttered uncertainly in the doorway. Through the evening Felix Winscombe lay propped on pillows, his head covered by a black gros de Naples cap. His keen personality waned and revived on his long, yellow countenance. At one side wigs stood in a row on blocks, a brilliant, magenta coat lay in a huddle on a chair. At intervals he spoke, in a thinner, higher voice than customary, petulantly uneasy, or with a familiar, sardonic inflection. At the latter Ludowika would grow immensely cheered. She entirely ignored Howat on the occasions when he was in the room. He saw her mostly bent over leather boxes, into which disappeared her rich store of silk and gold brocades, shoes of purple morocco, soft white shifts. Howat watched her without an emotion visible on his sombre countenance.