If his days were sapping his vigor and driving him to the verge of madness, his nights were periods of a far more destructive torture. He had resolved that Sylvia should see no change in him; he was trying to persuade himself that there was no change in him. Yet at every tenderly inquiring glance of hers he felt that the blood must start forth on his forehead, that body and skull must burst from the tumult going on within them.
It was she who brought matters to a climax.
“Harboro, you’re not well,” she said one evening when her hand about his neck had won no response beyond a heavy, despairing gesture of his arm. His eyes were fixed on vacancy and were not to be won away from their unseeing stare.
“You’re right, Sylvia,” he said, trying to arouse himself. “I’ve been trying to fight against it, but I’m all out of sorts.”
“You must go away for a while,” she said. She climbed on his knee and assumed a prettily tyrannical manner. “You’ve been working too hard. They must give you a vacation, and you must go entirely away. For two weeks at least.”
The insidious poison that was destroying him spread still further with a swift rush at that suggestion. She would be glad to have him out of the way for a while. Were not unfaithful wives always eager to send their husbands away? He closed his eyes resolutely and his hands gripped the arms of his chair. Then a plan which he had been vaguely shaping took definite form. She was really helping him to do the thing he felt he must do.
He turned to her heavily like a man under the influence of a drug. “Yes, I’ll go away for a while,” he agreed. “I’ll make arrangements right away—to-morrow.”
“And I’ll go with you,” she said with decision, “and help to drive the evil hours away.” She had his face between her hands and was smiling encouragingly.
The words were like a dagger thrust. Surely, they were proof of fidelity, of affection, and in his heart he had condemned her.
“Would you like to go with me, Sylvia?” he asked. His voice had become husky.