He stumbled to his feet.
“All right,” he said.
Then he shivered, feeling a deadly sickness of soul. No, he could not meet his fellow creatures to-night.
“Give them my compliments and apologies, and say I am unwell and unable to dine with them this evening. See that they have all they want, as usual.”
“Very good, sir—but yourself? I’m sorry you are ill, sir. What can I bring you?”
“Nothing,” said Quixtus harshly. “Nothing. And please don’t trouble me any more.”
Mrs. Pennycook regarded him in some astonishment, not having heard him speak in such a tone before. Probably no one else had, since he had learned to speak.
“If you’re not better in the morning, sir, I might fetch the doctor.”
He turned in his chair. “Go. I tell you. Go. Leave me alone.”
Later he rose and switched on the light and, mechanically descending to the hall, like a sleep-walker, deposited his usual largesse in the pockets of the three seedy, familiar overcoats. Then he went up to his museum again. The effort, however, had cleared his mind. He reflected. He had not been very well of late. There were such things as hallucinations, to which men broken down by mental strain were subject. Let him read the letter through once more. He took the crumpled paper from his pocket, smoothed it out and read. No. There was no delusion. The whole story was there—the treachery, the faithlessness, the guilty passion that gloried in its repeated consummation. His wife Angela, his friend Will Hammersley—the only woman and the only man he had ever loved. A sudden memory smote him. He had entrusted her to Hammersley’s keeping times out of number.