Throttled or not, the guide saved the situation. He saved it, undisguisedly, for his own sake; for he had no zest for helping to carry a bier over the Folgefond. They made a litter of alpen-stocks and the mackintosh, and so between them carried Urquhart down the mountain. No need to dwell on it. They reached the hotel at Odde about midnight, but halfway to it they found help.
CHAPTER XXIV
URQUHART'S APOLOGY
Macartney was right when he said to Lucy, in talking over the adventure, that Urquhart had no moral sense, though she had not then been convinced. But she was to be convinced before she had done with him.
He asked for her repeatedly, and with no regard at all to what had happened. At last he was told that if he excited himself she would leave the hotel. Vera Nugent told him that, having installed herself his nurse. Vera, who knew nothing but suspected much, guessed that Macartney had had as much of her brother as he cared about. As for Lucy, on the whole she despised her for preferring James with the Law to Jimmy without it. In this she did little justice to James's use of his advantage; but, as I say, she didn't know what had happened. All she could see for herself was that where she had once had a faible for Urquhart she was now ridiculously in love with her husband. Vera thought that any woman was ridiculous who fell into that position. She was not alone in the opinion.
However, the main thing was that Jimmy shouldn't fret himself into a fever. If he kept quiet, she believed that he would recover. There was no dislocation, the doctors told her, but a very bad wrench. He must be perfectly still—and we should see.
Lucy was not told how impatiently she was awaited. James, maybe, did not know anything about it. He felt great delicacy in telling what he had to tell her of the events of that day. But she guessed nearly everything, even that Urquhart had intended to break his own neck. "He would," she said, being in a stare; "he's like that." James agreed, but pointed out that it had nearly involved his own end likewise. Lucy stared on, but said, "That wouldn't occur to him at the time." No, said James, on the contrary. It had occurred to him at the time that if he cut the rope, he, James, would immediately turn for home. She nodded her head several times. "He's like that." And then she turned and hid her face. "It's all dreadful," she said; "I don't want to know any more." It was then that James pronounced upon Urquhart's absence of morality, and found out that she was very much interested in him anyhow.
She was curious about what had passed between him and James, for she was sure that there had been something. James admitted that. "It was very uncomfortable," he said; "I cut him as short as I could—but I was awfully sorry for him. After all, I had scored, you see."