In the period of coma that succeeded this outbreak Sir Adrian, was again secured, as mercifully as possible, from any possibility of doing his wife a mischief, and the second paroxysm which convulsed the bound and shackled madman was very terrible to witness.
Like its predecessor, this attack was followed by a stupor, during which Sir Adrian appeared more dead than alive.
He was palpably weaker, restoratives failing to produce any appreciable effect, and towards morning, in those chill, small hours when the powers of the body languish and fail, the crazed and self-tormented spirit of Adrian Latimer quitted a world in which he had been able to perceive none of those things that are just and pure and lovely and of good report, but only distrust and malice and, finally, black hatred.
A fortnight had come and gone. Sir Adrian’s body had been laid to rest in Coombe Eavie churchyard, and Claire, in the simplest of widow’s weeds, went about once more, looking rather frail and worn-out but with a fugitive light of happiness on her face that was a source of rejoicing to those who loved her.
She made no pretence at mourning the man who had turned her life into a living hell for nearly three years and who stood like a gaoler betwixt her and the happiness which might have been hers had she been free. But the conventions, as well as her own feelings, dictated that a decent interval must elapse before she and Nick could be married, and this would be for her a quiet period dedicated to the readjustment of her whole attitude towards life.
The length of that period was the subject of considerable discussion. Nick protested that six months was amply long enough to wait—too long indeed!—but Claire herself seemed disposed to prolong her widowhood into a year.
“It isn’t in the least because I feel I owe it to Adrian,” she said in answer to Nick’s protest. “I don’t consider that I owe him anything at all. But I feel so battered, Nick, so utterly tired and weary after the perpetual struggle of the last three years that I don’t want to plunge suddenly into the new duties of a new life—not even into new happiness. It’s difficult to make you understand, but I feel just like a sponge which has soaked up all it can and simply can’t absorb any more of anything. You must let me have time for the past to evaporate a bit.”
But it required the addition of a few common-sense observations on the part of Lady Anne to drive the nail home.
“Claire is quite right, Nick,” she told him. “She is temporarily worn out—mentally, physically and spiritually spent. Her nerves have been kept at their utmost stretch off and on for years, and now that release has come they’ve collapsed like a fiddle-string when the peg that holds it taut is loosened. You must give her time to recover, to key herself up to normal pitch again. At present she isn’t fit to face even the demands that big happiness brings in its train.”