"I'll wait, of course," he said, "until it's over." He seemed to want to say something else, and after a moment he came out with it. "You needn't be afraid of my talking outside ... professional secrecy, of course."
Alan came back to Constance. Outside, the gray of dusk was spreading, and within the house it had grown dark; Constance heard the doctor turn on a light, and the shadowy glow of a desk lamp came from the library. Alan walked to and fro with uneven steps; he did not speak to her, nor she to him. It was very quiet in the library; she could not even hear Luke's breathing now. Then she heard the doctor moving; Alan went to the light and switched it on, as the doctor came out to them.
"It's over," he said to Alan. "There's a law covers these cases; you may not be familiar with it. I'll make out the death certificate—pneumonia and a weak heart with alcoholism. But the police have to be notified at once; you have no choice as to that. I'll look after those things for you, if you want."
"Thank you; if you will." Alan went with the doctor to the door and saw him drive away. Returning, he drew the library portières; then, coming back to Constance, he picked up her muff and collar from the chair where she had thrown them, and held them out to her.
"You'll go now, Miss Sherrill," he said. "Indeed, you mustn't stay here—your car's still waiting, and—you mustn't stay here ... in this house!"
He was standing, waiting to open the door for her, almost where he had halted on that morning, a few weeks ago, when he had first come to the house in answer to Benjamin Corvet's summons; and she was where she had stood to receive him. Memory of how he had looked then—eager, trembling a little with excitement, expecting only to find his father and happiness—came to her; and as it contrasted with the way she saw him now, she choked queerly as she tried to speak. He was very white, but quite controlled; lines not upon his face before had come there.
"Won't you come over home with me," she said, "and wait for father there till we can think this thing out together?"
Her sweetness almost broke him down. "This ... together! Think this out! Oh, it's plain enough, isn't it? For years—for as long as Wassaquam has been here, my father has been seeing that man and paying blackmail to him twice a year, at least! He lived in that man's power. He kept money in the house for him always! It wasn't anything imaginary that hung over my father—or anything created in his own mind. It was something real—real; it was disgrace—disgrace and worse—something he deserved; and that he fought with blackmail money, like a coward! Dishonor—cowardice—blackmail!"
She drew a little nearer to him. "You didn't want me to know," she said. "You tried to put me off when I called you on the telephone; and—when I came here, you wanted me to go away before I heard. Why didn't you want me to know? If he was your father, wasn't he our—friend? Mine and my father's? You must let us help you."
As she approached, he had drawn back from her. "No; this is mine!" he denied her. "Not yours or your father's. You have nothing to do with this. Didn't he try in little cowardly ways to keep you out of it? But he couldn't do that; your friendship meant too much to him; he couldn't keep away from you. But I can—I can do that! You must go out of this house; you must never come in here again!"