“I’ve always loved him, you see,” said Myra. “I suppose you’ll have no objections to my going to bury him?”
“My dear old Myra,” cried Olivia. “Of course, my dear, you can go—go whenever you like.”
“I’ll come back as soon as it’s over,” said Myra.
She turned and walked away, and Olivia saw her lean and unexpressive shoulders rise as though a sob had shaken her.
CHAPTER XXVI
OF the death of Myra Stebbings’s husband and of her second appearance in Pendish during his sojourn in the West Country, Triona knew nothing. Again she had forbidden her sister-in-law to give him any information as to her doings. Again she disclaimed interest in the young man. Nor was he aware, a week after the funeral, that Myra, who had stood by the graveside in the pouring rain, and had insisted on jogging back to Pendish wet through, in the undertaker’s brougham, lay dangerously ill in the upstairs bedroom of the little Georgian house. The increasing business of the Quantock Garage diverted his energies from polite tramps into Pendish to enquire into Mrs. Pettiland’s state of health. Also, he was growing morose, his soul feeding on itself, and beginning to develop an unwholesome misanthropy. Like Hamlet, man didn’t delight him; no, nor woman neither. When not working in the garage or driving the old touring-car, he retired to brood in his loft and eschewed the company of his kind.
“You’re overdoing it,” said Radnor, a kindly person. “Why not go away on a holiday and have a change?”
“Only one change would do me any good,” he replied gloomily, “and that would be to get out of this particularly vile universe.”
Radnor looked round his well ordered, bustling establishment and smiled.
“It isn’t as bad as all that.”