She was silent for a long time; he had expected that she would cry out—had fully anticipated a painful scene; but this apathy was more disconcerting than anything could have been. After a time, without looking up at him, she asked softly: “And Comethup? What of Comethup?”
“He is well, I believe,” said the captain, trying to hide his astonishment. “I have not heard from him for some time.” The worthy gentleman was at a loss to understand the strangeness of her demeanour; he cast about in his mind for a clew to guide him, but could find none.
“You know that he has left his home—that he has been cast out into the world?” she asked.
The captain forgot everything in his new astonishment. “What do you mean?” he asked. “I had heard nothing about this. I don’t understand.”
“Not now—not now,” she whispered. “Some other time you will know all about it and will judge me as you should. Leave me alone now; I want to think. Kiss me”—she turned up her face to his—“and don’t think hardly of me, dear old friend, if you can help it.”
He kissed her and softly patted her cheek, lingered a moment, and then, as he saw her lying with closed eyes, stole out of the room, shutting the door behind him. With scarcely a word to Medmer Theed he went out of the shop and into the street, and walked back to his own place. There, pacing up and down the little parlour, he turned over many things in his mind, and wondered again and again in a vague fashion what he should do; above all things, what he should do in regard to ’Linda.
To leave her with the old shoemaker was obviously out of the question, and yet what else was to be done? The captain felt here at once the helplessness of his mere manhood; saw that, whatever delicacy he might possess, it was quite unequal to such an occasion as this. “It wants a woman,” muttered the captain to himself; and so started on a new train of thought.
The result of that particular train of thought was that the captain, after passing a sleepless night, set off early the next morning for London, and presented himself within a few hours at the door of Miss Charlotte Carlaw’s house. He sent up his card and was at once admitted and taken into the old woman’s presence. She turned her head toward him as he entered the room, and smiled a welcome and held out her hand. The captain took the hand in his courtly fashion and hoped that she was well.
“Oh, in better health than I ought to be, I’ve no doubt,” replied the old woman. “And what brings you to town? Have you come like all the rest to upbraid me for my harshness—to cry out his virtues to me? have you come for that? Because, if you have, you will be wiser to save your breath and say nothing.”
“Let me begin by saying that I know nothing of the matter,” replied the captain, “and that that is not my errand. I have certainly learned in an accidental manner that Comethup no longer lives here; but I have heard so much within the past few days that my poor old brain is in a whirl, and I can think of nothing coherently.”