"Then go in a week. Your own work, your writing—can you drop that absolutely? It's far more exhausting—anything creative—than your office-work. And what's your minimum for your office? Don't do a stroke more than the minimum. As regards your general mode of life …"
He ordained a rigid, but familiar, rule of diet, exercise and rest; and Eric's attention began to wander. As well bid him add a cubit to his stature! He wondered how much Gaisford suspected.…
He became aware, in mid-reverie, that the doctor had finished speaking.
"And I'm to take this stuff?" Eric tried to read the prescription. "Strychnine—Is that right? Iron? Bromide? I can't make a guess at the other things. I say, Gaisford, will this make me sleep?"
A hint of despair in his voice was not lost on the doctor.
"I hope so. It will tone up your nervous system. But it's only for a week, mind! That's the limit of your reprieve before you go away. Don't imagine that stimulants and sedatives take the place of natural food or rest. Whatever—odds and ends you have to clear up must be cleared up within the next week."
Eric nodded and held out his hand. Gaisford had understood, then.… He wondered how long the medicine would take to "tone up" his nerves, for he had written a telegram to Barbara the night before, as soon as Agnes left him.
He walked to his office, trying to face the position more clearly than he had been able to do in the night. Why fret and worry? Barbara's "solemn promise" had already been broken in spirit; if she kept it in form, she would be haunted by a new memory, the intrusive shadow would take on a more terrific outline. There was no proof that Jack was alive … but Eric believed without proof; no certainty that he would present his claim … but Barbara would see nothing but certainty. Two allegiances, two promises … and no one could tell which she would choose.
Eric was walking blindly through streets which only his feet recognized. Regency Theatre.… And he had been heading for Whitehall. He would never go to the Regency again without seeing her—either a head leaning against his knee at rehearsal as they sat on a platform over the orchestra, or in their box, hand in hand, as on the first night of "The Bomb-Shell," when his nerves were jangling like the broken wires of a harp; he could never go to Mrs. Shelley's house without hearing her singing Madame Butterfly's song—and without some fool's asking if he had seen anything of Lady Barbara lately.…
A telegram was waiting for him, when at last he reached his office: Barbara would come up that day and dine with him; she hoped that he had received no bad news.… Eleven o'clock; and he would not see her until eight. He was too restless to work and at one o'clock he handed his papers to a colleague and slunk into the street. His foot-steps were turned towards the Thespian Club; but he could not pass the hall-porter without looking for a note, as on the night when he dined in his triumph with Lord Ettrick; he could not see a page-boy without expecting to find that Barbara had telephoned to him.…