"Give me the key," said Elspeth, still in a brown study by the window.
But this was too much for Frank.
"Pick it up for yourself, Els," he said, "and mind you are to swear you found it on the floor!"
Frank knew very well that if one is going to lie back and forth (as he intended to do when questioned), it is well to be prepared with occasional little scraps of truth. They cheer one up so.
Elspeth took the key, and hid it in her pocket.
"Now you can go," she said, and sat down on the bed, staring out at the broad river quietly slipping by.
"Well, you might at least have said 'thank you——'" began Frank. But catching the expression of her face, he suddenly desisted, and went out without another word.
* * * * *
No, Allan Syme was not dead. But he staggered home that night certainly more dead than alive. All day long he had moved in an atmosphere of the most appalling pestilence. The reek of mortality seemed to solidify in his nostrils, and his heart for the first time fainted within him.
He knew that there would be no welcome for him in the dark and lonely manse; no meal, no comfort, no living voice; not so much as a dog to lick his hand. His housekeeper, a mere hireling, had fled at the first alarm.