She suddenly took the hand which lay on her shoulder between both her own.
"Come with me, Robert," she said, an expression of the most intense despair on all her features, "come, I cannot believe that this blight which has passed over you can be final. I'll take you to the room where the little body of our beautiful child is lying. When you see that sweet face, surely you will remember."
He frowned when she began to speak; now he disengaged his hand from her clasp.
"It would not be right for me to humor you," he said. "You ought to see a doctor, Maggie, for you are really suffering from a strong delusion. If you encourage it it may become fixed, and even assume the proportions of a sort of insanity. Now, my dear wife, try and restrain yourself and listen to me."
She gazed at him with wide-open eyes. As he spoke she had difficulty in believing her own ears. A case like his was indeed new to her. She had never really believed in the tragedy of his house—but now at last the suspected and dreaded blow had truly fallen. Awdrey, like his ancestors before him, was forgetting the grave events of life. Was it possible that he could forget the child, whose life had been the joy of his existence, whose last looks of love had been directed to him, whose last faltering words had breathed his name? Yes, he absolutely forgot all about the child. The stern fact stared her in the face, she could not shut her eyes to it.
"You look at me strangely, Margaret," said Awdrey. "I cannot account for your looks, nor indeed for your actions during the whole of to-day. Now I wish to tell you that I have resolved to carry out Rumsey's advice—he wants me to leave home at once. I spent a night with him—was it last night? I really forget—but anyhow, during that time he had an opportunity of watching my symptoms. You know, don't you, how nervous I am, how full of myself? You know how this inertia steals over me, and envelops me in a sort of cloud. The state of the case is something like this, Maggie; I feel as if a dead hand were pressed against my heart; sometimes I have even a difficulty in breathing, at least in taking a deep breath. It seems to me as if the stupor of death were creeping up my body, gradually day by day, enfeebling all my powers more and more. Rumsey, who quite understands these symptoms, says that they are grave, but not incurable. He suggests that I should leave London and at once. I propose to take the eight o'clock Continental train. Will you come with me?"
"I?" she cried. "I cannot; our child's little body lies upstairs."
"Why will you annoy me by referring to that delusion of yours? You must know how painful it is to listen to you. Will you come, Maggie?"
"I cannot. Under any other circumstances I would gladly, but to-night, no, it is impossible."
"Very well then, I'll go alone. I have just been up in my room packing some things. I cannot possibly say how long I shall be absent—perhaps a few weeks, perhaps a day or two—I must be guided in this matter by my sensations."