“Mrs. Dyke, don’t fear me; don’t suspect me of evil intentions. I mean well.”
“So be it,” said Mrs. Dyke, drawing nearer on the sofa and allowing her stiff cold hand to lie passive and imprisoned. “In the fullest confidence.” That evanescent aspect of normality had gone; she looked at Emmie with mad eyes, and spoke in a tone that was vibratingly intense. “I want my husband—dead or alive. If he is dead, I wish the body embalmed and put in a glass case. If he is alive—send him to the devil and choke him. Look here. A stitch in time saves nine. I put my husband in the bed—a colossal bed that I had built to hold him. Room for five or six other people—of ordinary size. So it’s quite absurd to pretend that there wasn’t room in it for me. Very well. When I woke he wasn’t there. I hunted for him high and low. He was under the bed laughing at me, or up the chimney. ‘Be calm,’ they all said. ‘That is the watchword henceforth—Be calm.’ ‘Well, I am calm, Aunt Janet,’ I said. ‘Could anyone be calmer? I am quite reasonable and obeying orders. But I simply say I want my husband.’
“But not a bit—they dragged me into the carriage. They flogged those poor horses—” And suddenly her manner changed to a sort of exalted fervour. “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. Awake—throw off the chains. For on that day there shall be a great light shining from the high mountains. I am the resurrection and the life. Whoso believeth in Me—If you don’t mind, I’ll say my prayers. I forgot them again”; and she sank to her knees and laid her face upon the seat of the sofa. “Please ask them not to disturb me.” And she began to murmur monotonously.
Miss Verinder waited a little while, and then went to the door and beckoned the nurse. She asked her not to disturb Mrs. Dyke.
“But she’ll go on like that till midnight.”
“As a favour to me. Give her a quarter of an hour.” Emmie tipped the nurse. “You promise, don’t you?”
Emmie, wrung with pity, stood at the door looking back into the room. That was the last sight and sound—the poor creature kneeling in the unchanged attitude and the toneless murmur of the prayer.
Miss Verinder during her interview with the head of the asylum was very business-like. She arranged to pay what was necessary now and whatever might be necessary in the future, should a further increase be required.
Thus oddly she began to contribute to the comfort and maintenance of the unhappy soul whose place in the outer world she had taken. She had not hesitated to answer the call. Nor did there for a moment pass through her mind even the vaguely formulated thought that she was taking every possible means to keep Mrs. Dyke alive, when the death of Mrs. Dyke might have relieved her of an embarrassment which, although it had grown slight, still existed.
She was very tired when she reached Euston about seven in the evening, and, since she was alone and without luggage, the porters neglected her in the scramble on the arrival platform, and she was unable to get a cab. Advised to try for one on the departure side, she went through a subway, up into the great hall among hurrying people; and suddenly heard two men saying words that made her heart leap and sent the blood rushing to her head. Hastily turning, she moved towards the bookstall; and there in bright strong light, she saw the same words that she had just heard. All round the front of the stall they were repeated in enormous lettering, on the bills of the evening papers; for to-night no other item of news was worth displaying—“South Pole Reached”; “Discovery of South Pole”; “South Pole.”