“They went back?”
“Yes, they went back. That was eight years ago?”
Hoyting began to count up the continents on his fingers. “Australia last year—South America—Siberia—the Transvaal, before that. Yes, it would have been eight years ago.”
To my surprise, I found myself reluctant to bring out the truth. Hoyting, as he talked, had been so vividly aware of the Dorriens, had made it so evident how real to him and repellent was that remembered scene, that my hesitation was not unnatural.
“He practised at home for a number of years, doing some research when he had time. He went back into public work to some extent—boards and commissions again. Her family seemed to manage him entirely.” Then I stopped.
Hoyting waited. The lights in the harbor began to lessen, great patches of shadow spacing them. I waited, too, to gather strength. It had all become horrible to me now, and permeated with the sordidness that spoils tragedy.
“He shot himself.”
“He cared so much as that?” Hoyting’s huge finger flicked off the cigarette ash before there was need.
“He had—oh, I only heard it, Hoyting!” I cried. “I don’t know the whole of it. Who does? But those damned Hewells took it up—I suppose by way of condoning the suicide—and made a martyr of him.”
“Go on.”