With his head well forward, he crept up the carpeted stairway. The upper hall light was burning low; from his wife’s “sewing room,” as it was called, came the sound of voices. The door was ajar, and from the crevice a strong light flooded out into the twilight of the hall. Now entirely mad with jealousy, he softly glided toward the crack, but before his eyes could further feed his torture, his ears served up a plenitude, in Helen’s voice—that dear, clear, sweet voice that had sung his child to sleep and——
“Mr. Stillingfleet—my dear Mr. Stillingfleet, if I may be allowed the liberty——”
“My dearest creature,” interrupted a deep voice, muffled, almost as if by intent disguised, “if it be a liberty to call me dear, I find myself craving the instant fall of kingdoms.”
“La, sir, you confuse me quite!” There was a rustle of silken skirts and Helen laughed again.
Peering cautiously in, this sight met Robert’s bloodshot eyes: Helen—or at least the fantastic figure which had her voice—stood by the mantelpiece. The hair was high-rolled and powdered, in it two nodding white plumes; she wore a yellow brocade gown strangely cut, long black mitts on her hands, which waved a huge fan coquettishly at a man—a creature in the costume of Goldsmith’s day—who stood near her, bowing low. On his head was a wig, powdered and in queue, his face a mask of paint and powder and patches. He was clad in a huge waistcoat, long coat, knee breeches and hose—blue hose—upon his comely legs! Putting out his hand toward Helen’s, he said with sickening affectation, seizing her hand and raising it to his lips:
“It’s high time we were off to Montague’s, my fair H. P. ‘Time flies, death urges, knells call, heaven invites!’”
For an instant a very ancient and honorable desire to enter that room and violently change the face of several things dominated the listening husband; that he did not marked the high tide of his nervous breakdown. A sudden reaction, common to the neurasthenic, swept over him, and his soul withdrew in anguish from the sickening horror of the discovery. He crept softly down the stairs, seized hat and coat and staggered out into the night.
It was five days before Benjamin Bentnor’s best detective work succeeded in finding his brother-in-law in a hall bedroom at an obscure hotel in Washington, for a strong impulse of duty to be performed had landed Robert there, although he had completely lost sight of his mission. When Ben found him, he was seated on the edge of the bed, his head bowed in his hands.
Bentnor’s gentleness toward him would have shown a saner man that his condition was serious; but it took a physician to do that in the end, and a year of rest and travel to cure him.
At first, however, all Bentnor could do was to sit about rather helplessly and chatter in an effort to break through Robert’s gloom. The second day after he found his brother-in-law, he was at his wits’ end to find further subjects for cheerful conversation, until toward evening he had a sudden inspiration!