Calthorpe knew from the instant defiance in the blind man’s tone that he must make no allusion to Silas’s disability; he said, “Well, the sad circumstances of your wife’s death....”
“She brought me my dinner as usual,” said Silas suddenly; “she sat with me in the shed while I ate it, down by the railway, like she always did, because afterwards she used to bring me back to my work, and then carry the plate and things home. Just like every other day. When I’d done she took me back and left me in the shops; I didn’t know anything more. After I’d been there two or three hours they came and told me. They said she’d been found on the railway line. I don’t know how long she’d been there, or why she didn’t start off for home at once. Perhaps she’d been waiting for the fog to lift; there was a fog to-day, wasn’t there? and anyway I could feel it in my breath without her telling me so. It was extra thick down on the railway. Perhaps she waited for it to lift. Or perhaps she was waiting to meet somebody in the shed.”
“Waiting to meet somebody, Silas?”
“I’m a blind man, Mr. Calthorpe, and she was a blind man’s wife.”
Calthorpe saw that Gregory’s wife had ceased her little clatter with the supper-things, and was standing as though stupefied beside the supper table, her fingers resting on its edge. Now she moved again, setting a kettle on the range.
“I knew nothing till hours after she left me—two or three hours,” Silas reverted. “Nothing until they came and told me. I’d been working all the afternoon. She left me at the door of the shops, Mr. Calthorpe,” he said; “she didn’t come in with me.”
“No, no; I see,” said Calthorpe.
“Sometimes she’d come in for a chat; she was friendly with my mates, friendly with Donnithorne specially. He’d come here sometimes, Sundays, wouldn’t he, Gregory? But to-day she didn’t come in. No. She said she had a bit of mending to do at home; that’s it, a bit of mending. She wanted to get home quick.”
“Then why should you think she waited to meet anybody in the shed?” asked Calthorpe.
“That’s only my fancy; I’m a blind man, Mr. Calthorpe; I couldn’t have seen who she waited for, or who she met. Gregory could have seen. But I couldn’t, and Gregory wasn’t there. You know he works inside the factory, Mr. Calthorpe, and I work in the shops down by the railway-sheds, tying up the boxes.”