She went, with Mrs. Gardner, the next day. He and Dr. Gardner saw them off at the station. He thanked Mrs. Gardner for her kindness, wondering if she knew. The little woman had tears in her eyes. She pressed his hand and tried to speak to him, and broke down. He gathered that, whatever Anne knew, her friend knew nothing.
The doctor was inscrutable. He might or he might not know. If he did, he would keep his knowledge to himself. They walked together from the station, and the doctor talked about the weather and the municipal elections.
Anne was to be away a month. Majendie wrote to her every week and received, every week, a precise, formal little letter in reply. She told him, every week, of an improvement in her own health, and appeared solicitous for his.
While she was away, he saw a great deal of the Hannays and of Gorst. When he was not with the Hannays, Gorst was with him. Gorst was punctilious, but a little shy in his inquiries for Mrs. Majendie. The Hannays made no allusion to her beyond what decency demanded. They evidently regarded her as a painful subject.
About a week before the day fixed for Anne's return, the firm of Hannay & Majendie had occasion to consult its solicitor about a mortgage on some office buildings. Price was excited and assiduous. Excited and assiduous, Hannay thought, beyond all proportion to the trivial affair. Hannay noticed that Price took a peculiar and almost morbid interest in the junior partner. His manner set Hannay thinking. It suggested the legal instinct scenting the divorce-court from afar.
He spoke of it to Mrs. Hannay.
"Do you think she knows?" said Mrs. Hannay.
"Of course she does. Or why should she leave him, at a time when most people stick to each other if they've never stuck before?"
"Do you think she'll try for a separation?"
"No, I don't."