“I must send you away, Wallie. It's necessary. I have my column to write for The Herald. It must be in by eleven. I had forgotten all about it. They won't want my name,—it would damn the paper,—but I suppose they 're counting on the column, and I don't want to leave them in the lurch.”
“They don't want your column this week, at any rate,” said Herold. “Oh, don't begin to bellow. I went to see Ferguson yesterday. He's as kind as can be, and of course wants you to go on as usual. But no one except a raving idiot would expect stuff from you to-day. And as for your silly old column, I've written it myself. I suggested it to Ferguson, and he jumped at it.”
“You wrote my column?” said Risca, in a softened voice.
“Of course I did, and a devilish good column, too. Do you think I can only paint my face and grin through a horse-collar?”
“What made you think of it? I did n't.”
“That's precisely why I did,” said Herold.
Risca sat down, calmer in mood, and lit a pipe. Herold, the sensitive, accepted this action as an implication of thanks. Risca puffed his tobacco for a few moments in silence, apparently absorbed in enjoyment of the fragrant subtleties of the mixture of honeydew and birdseye and latakia and the suspicion of soolook that gives mystery to a blend. At last he spoke.
“I shall arrange to keep on that house in Smith Street, and put in a caretaker, so that she shall have a home when she comes out. What will happen then, God Almighty knows. Perhaps she will have changed. We need n't discuss it. But, at any rate, while I 'm away, I want you to see to it for me. It's a ghastly task, but some one must undertake it. Will you?”
“Of course,” said Herold. “But what do you mean by being 'away'?”
“I am going to Australia,” said Risca.