After this she went downstairs to the smoking:-room, whither Jane brought her an egg beaten up in brandy. The girl hung about, eager for a word of detail concerning the trial. The expectation was pathetic, considering its impossibility of fulfillment. Irene dismissed her gently, and took the stimulant, of which she stood in great need. And then she thought, hard and anxiously.
A dreadful sense of loneliness crept over her, even more intense than that which she had once felt before, when she had gone on board the steamer at Bombay, journeying from one grave to another. It seemed impossible that Gerard should not be returning. She had never craved him so much as in this hour of crisis. Again she read the now crumpled sheet containing his curt message. Her blind faith in his acquiescence in the sacrifice was rudely shaken. He had gone from her in a passion of anger. There was no other solution. She felt sick with doubt and dread. Her eyes wandered round the room, trying to derive assurance of his return from the familiar, external signs of his occupancy. His fishing-rods stood in a corner in their neat canvas cases. His cartridge-belt hung festooned beneath a hunting-trophy on the wall, surmounted by a fox’s mask. Opposite, by the mantelpiece, stretched his overflowing pipe-rack. On a little table by the side of the great armchair, whose well-worn seat showed the impress of his huge limbs, still remained his pipe of the morning, with the ashes half fallen out. His slippers lay beneath the chair. Irene looked at them pathetically, and again felt the very miserable desire to cry. The trivial generally tends the flood-gates of tears. In the horrors of a siege women who have viewed, brave-eyed, men butchered before their faces, have been known to break down at the sight of a wrecked canary-cage.
Presently Jane came in with a letter. A commissionnaire had brought it and was waiting in the hall for an answer. Irene took it from the girl’s hand with a quick heart-throb. From Gerard, doubtless explanatory—perhaps utterly reassuring. But as soon as her eyes fell upon the envelope she recognised Hugh’s writing, and felt miserably disappointed. The letter was addressed to “Mr. and Mrs. Merriam.” It ran:
“Dearest Ones—The terrible price you have paid for my life makes me shrink from crossing your threshold unbidden. For such a deed it is idle to talk of gratitude. Send for me and I shall come. But God knows what I can say to you both. Hugh.”
She sat for a few moments staring before her. Jane stood by respectful and dutiful, holding the brass salver by her side. Suddenly Irene rose, and, standing at her writing-table, dashed off a hasty line. They would have paid the price fifty times over for his sake. She would send for him soon, but to-night she was exhausted. He must be bright and happy. The bond between the three was only firmer and dearer. The maid took the note to the waiting messenger and Irene sank again into her chair by the fire.
She felt unspeakably grateful to Hugh for writing. How could she have received him? How explained Gerard’s absence? The thought of a meeting was a burning fire in cheeks and bosom. Fortunately it was avoided. She thanked the tact that always underlay and checked Hugh’s impulses. Another man, equally generous, would have rushed to throw himself at her feet.
The evening wore on. She sat down alone to the inevitable dinner and forced herself to eat. Once she caught Jane looking at her curiously. The details of the great trial’s sensational finish had reached Sunnington and were the theme of the servants’ hall. She read amused speculation and virtuous approbation, subtly mingled, in the girl’s glance. She flushed miserably, in spite of effort, and her throat contracted at the morsel she was about to swallow. Perhaps her servants would give her notice. The ironical pettiness of the thought faintly amused her and restored self-composure. The meal over, she returned to the smoking-room fire and nursed her heart-ache till bedtime.
Hugh’s letter, often re-read, awakened a desire for his companionship, vague and scarcely formulated as an idea. Yet she would have shrunk in strange terror at his approach. Womanlike, she longed for a tender word or gentle touch, and strove to materialise it out of Hugh’s letter. And she was conscious of a little disappointment, so little that she would not admit it to her reason, in the joint address. Her reason admired the delicacy with which Hugh had conveyed his appreciation of their combined purpose, but her woman’s instinct felt the individual lack. Ever so subtle an acknowledgment of her separate action would have been balm to the bruised spirit.
She slept fitfully, was up betimes, disregarding a racking headache. Gerard would come. She would have speech with him, learn the unimagined worst.
No letter from him. Her pile of correspondence, envelopes briefly surveyed, remained unopened. She had not the heart to read letters. All her throbbing thoughts were Gerard’s. He was deeply angered. She would humble herself. Yet human certainty had never been so radiantly absolute as hers had been in the oneness of their sacrifice, when she had offered up his honour and her virtue. She could come to no conclusion.