‘“Going out!”—you will not be so mad, so criminal; and after your promise!’
He stood up. ‘It is useless to argue. If I do not go out, I shall certainly go mad. As for criminal—why, that’s a woman’s word. Who on earth is to know me?’
‘It is of no consequence, then, that the servants are already gossiping about this impossible Dr Ferguson; that you are certain to be seen either going or returning; that Alice is bound to discover that you are well enough to go out, and yet not even enough to say good-night to your own daughter—oh, it’s monstrous, it’s a frantic, a heartless thing to do!’ Her voice vaguely suggested tears.
Lawford eyed her coldly and stubbornly—thinking of the empty room he would leave awaiting his return, its lamp burning, its fire-flames shining. It was almost a physical discomfort, this longing unspeakable for the twilight, the green secrecy and the silence of the graves. ‘Keep them out of the way,’ he said in a low voice; ‘it will be dark when I come in.’ His hardened face lit up. ‘It’s useless to attempt to dissuade me.’
‘Why must you always be hurting me? why do you seem to delight in trying to estrange me?’ Husband and wife faced each other across the clear-lit room. He did not answer.
‘For the last time,’ she said in a quiet, hard voice, ‘I ask you not to go.’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Ask me not to come back,’ he said; ‘that’s nearer your hope.’ He turned his face to the fire. Without moving he heard her go out, return, pause, and go out again. And when he deliberately wheeled round in his chair the little key lay conspicuous there on the counterpane.
CHAPTER NINE
The last light of sunset lay in the west; and a sullen wrack of cloud was mounting into the windless sky when Lawford entered the country graveyard again by its dark weather-worn lych-gate. The old stone church with its square tower stood amid trees, its eastern window faintly aglow with crimson and purple. He could hear a steady, rather nasal voice through its open lattices. But the stooping stones and the cypresses were out of sight of its porch. He would not be seen down there. He paused a moment, however; his hat was drawn down over his eyes; he was shivering. Far over the harvest fields showed a growing pallor in the sky. He would have the moon to go home by.
‘Home!’—these trees, this tongueless companionship, this heavy winelike air, this soundless turf—these in some obscure desolate fashion seemed far rather really home. His eyes wandered towards the fading crimson. And with that on his right hand he began softly, almost on tiptoe, descending the hill. It seemed to him that the steady eyes of the dead were watching him in his slow progress. The air was echoing with little faint, clear calls. He turned and snapped his fingers at a robin that was stalking him with its stony twittering from bush to bush.