It did not take his wife so long to understand what had happened, as Pinney thought it would. She went straight to the heart of the mystery.
"Did you say anything about his going back?"
"Why—in a general way," Pinney admitted, ruefully.
"Then, of course, that made him afraid of you. You broke your word, Ren, and it's served you right."
His wife was walking to and fro with the baby in her arms; and she said it was sick, and she had been up all night with it. She told Pinney he had better go out and get a doctor.
It was all as different from the return Pinney had planned as it could be.
"I believe the old fool is crazy," he said, and he felt that this was putting the mildest possible construction upon Northwick's behavior.
"He seems to have known what he was about, anyway," said Mrs. Pinney, coldly. The baby began to cry. "Oh, do go for the doctor!"