In utter despair of moving him—-feeling keenly, bitterly (if I must own it), his merciless superiority to all that I had said to him in the honest fervor of my devotion and my love—I thought of Major Fitz-David as a last resort. In the disordered state of my mind at that moment, it made no difference to me that the Major had already tried to reason with him, and had failed. In the face of the facts I had a blind belief in the influence of his old friend, if his old friend could only be prevailed upon to support my view.
“Wait for me one moment,” I said. “I want you to hear another opinion besides mine.”
I left him, and returned to the study. Major Fitz-David was not there. I knocked at the door of communication with the front room. It was opened instantly by the Major himself. The doctor had gone away. Benjamin still remained in the room.
“Will you come and speak to Eustace?” I began. “If you will only say what I want you to say—”
Before I could add a word more I heard the house door opened and closed. Major Fitz-David and Benjamin heard it too. They looked at each other in silence.
I ran back, before the Major could stop me, to the room in which I had seen Eustace. It was empty. My husband had left the house.
CHAPTER XIII. THE MAN’S DECISION.
MY first impulse was the reckless impulse to follow Eustace—openly through the streets.
The Major and Benjamin both opposed this hasty resolution on my part. They appealed to my own sense of self-respect, without (so far as I remember it) producing the slightest effect on my mind. They were more successful when they entreated me next to be patient for my husband’s sake. In mercy to Eustace, they begged me to wait half an hour. If he failed to return in that time, they pledged themselves to accompany me in search of him to the hotel.