“No, I’ll walk up-stairs.”
He had seen the lift was not below, and did not wish to wait for its descent. Vere’s writing was on the envelope he held; but Vere’s writing distorted, frantic, tragic. He knew before he opened the envelope that it must contain some dreadful statement or some wild appeal; and he hurried to his room, almost feeling the pain and fear of the writer burn through the paper to his hand.
“DEAR MONSIEUR EMILE,—Please come to the island at once.
Something terrible has happened. I don’t know what it is. But
Madre is—No, I can’t put it. Oh, do come—please—please come!
VERE
“Come the quickest way.”
“Something terrible has happened.” He knew at once what it was. The walls of the cell in which he had enclosed his friend had crumbled away. The spirit which for so long had rested upon a lie had been torn from its repose, had been scourged to its feet to face the fierce light of truth. How would it face the truth?
“But Madre is—No, I can’t put it.”
That phrase struck a chill almost of horror to his soul. He stared at it for a moment trying to imagine—things. Then he tore the note up.
The quickest way to the island!
“I shall not be in to dinner to-night.”
He was speaking to the waiter at the door of the Egyptian Room. A minute later he was in the Via Chiatamone at the back of the hotel waiting for the tram. He must go by Posilipo to the Trattoria del Giardinetto, walk down to the village below, and take a boat from there to the island. That was the quickest way. The tram-bell sounded. Was he glad? As he watched the tram gliding towards him he was conscious of an almost terrible reluctance—a reluctance surely of fear—to go that night to the island.
But he must go.