"Poor old girl," said Gaunt, as he went into the dining-room to lunch. "You and I are a bit superfluous in this house now, it seems."
He went out that afternoon with the object of meeting Caunter some distance away at a house whose tenant had asked for a new thatch. For the first time in his life he forgot what he had come out for, and wandered by himself until past six o'clock, his whole mind focused upon his domestic affairs, wondering whether any readjustment were possible, and if so, how he should set about it.
Entering the house once more, he suddenly remembered his neglected appointment, and told himself that he would go round to Caunter's house after dinner and apologise. Slowly and heavily he went upstairs, and into his room to change. In the midst of his toilet sounds came to him, low and muffled, from the next room. At first he hardly noticed; then he crept close to the door, and listened. What he heard gave him a curious sensation of heat, of hurry, of desperate sympathy, and extraordinary vexation.
His wife was in trouble. He could hear her. The sound of sobbing, the pitiful broken gasps of quite uncontrollable weeping came to him, mingled with the tones, coaxing and low, with which Grover was apparently attempting consolation. What had happened? Had she hurt herself? Had they allowed her to run into any danger? But no! He was at once aware, though how he knew it he could hardly say, that no pain of her own would draw those wild tears, that unrestrained grief from Virginia.
Whatever it was, it must be stopped, or he should go mad. He felt as if his head were on fire—as if he must go out and kill somebody—why was it allowed, that she should be made unhappy? Then he thought of himself—of his own diabolical cruelty! Could she be lamenting because she was slowly but inexorably growing better, because she was to be taken from the doctor's kind hands and surrendered once more to her husband's harsh ones?
The sweat stood upon the forehead of Gaunt of Omberleigh. It seemed to him that never—even in his hot youth—even in the first days of his jilting—had he suffered such torment as this. He rushed from his room into the passage, and called aloud to Grover:
"Come here—come out—I want to speak to you!"