“Thank you,” said Joyce.
“I think she was took ill, and was going to see a doctor,” said Sarah, unloading the tray noisily.
“Did Madame Latour tell you so?”
“No. But she was looking so bad I was frightened to see her.”
“Very well,” said Joyce, not wishing to show the servant his agitation. “She will be back soon. Yes, you can leave the breakfast.” Sarah quitted the room with her heavy, scuffling step. Joyce remained by the fire tugging at his moustache, his mind filled with nameless anxieties. The presentiment of ill grew in intensity. Why had Yvonne left the house at that early hour? Sarah’s suggestion was manifestly absurd. If Yvonne had been poorly, she would have sent for a doctor. Yet the servant’s last remark frightened him. He remembered Yvonne’s pallor of the night before. A dreadful surmise began to dawn upon him. Had he been blind, all the way through, and condemned her to a fate impossible to bear? Once, in South Africa, he had seen an innocent man sentenced to death. The picture of the man’s face in its wistful despair rose before him. It was terribly like Yvonne’s. Had she, then, pronounced sentence on herself?
He walked to and fro in feverish helplessness, his heart weighed down by the new load. The cheap American clock on the mantel-piece struck ten. There came, soon after, a knock at the door. Joyce sprang to open it. But it was only the boy from the shop wanting to know if any one was coming down. Joyce put his hand to his forehead. He had entirely forgotten Mr. Runcle’s absence and his own consequent responsibility.
“You can take the money for any book outside, Tommy,” he said, after a little reflection. “If a customer wants anything inside, come up and call me.”
The boy went away, proud at being left in charge. Joyce filled a cup with the rapidly cooling coffee, and drank it at a draught. The minutes crept on. If his wild and dreadful fancies were groundless, where could Yvonne be? She could not have chosen a time before the shops were open to make any necessary purchases before the ceremony. Or had she gone out of the house so as to avoid spending a painful morning in his company? But that was unlike Yvonne. At last he descended, and stood bareheaded in the raw air, gazing up and down the street.
“I ‘ve taken eightpence already,” said the boy, handing him a pile of coppers.
Joyce took them from him absently, and put them in his pocket, while Tommy went back to his seat on the upturned box, and resumed his occupation of blowing on his chilled fingers. No sign of Yvonne. Several passers-by turned round and looked at Joyce. In his well-fitting clothes, and with his refined, thorough-bred air, he seemed an incongruous figure standing hatless in the doorway of the dingy secondhand book-shop.