Part 22 (1/2)

She drew him on towards the stairs. He took hold of the banister and mounted, stumbling, and kicking against each stair in his progress. She got him as far as the landing; but when she strove to draw him on towards the bedroom he resisted.

”You go on,” he said. ”I must go down and switch off the lights?”

”Never mind the lights,” she urged. ”Come with me, dear.”

”I must go down,” he repeated with irritable obstinacy. ”I won't be a minute. Go on, and get into bed. I'll be up in a minute.”

”No,” she persisted, and got between him and the stairs, and put out a hand to hinder his descent. ”Stay with me, Paul, I don't want you to go down again.”

With darkening looks, and anger kindling in his resentful eyes, he endeavoured to push past her. He shook off her hold roughly, and made a clumsy movement forward, lurching against her heavily, with a force and suddenness which caused her to overbalance. She threw out a hand wildly to catch at the rail, missed it, and fell headlong down the stairs, landing with a crash upon the floor of the hall, where she lay, an inert and crumpled figure, with white upturned face showing deathlike in the artificial light.

Hallam swayed forward dizzily and clutched at the rail and leaned against it heavily.

”My G.o.d!” he muttered, and hid his eyes from the sight of the still white face.

There came the sound of doors opening behind him. He pulled himself together quickly, and stumbled down the stairs, and knelt on the floor beside his wife. The frightened faces of the servants peered at him from the landing. He did not look up: he was stroking his wife's hand and speaking to her softly and weeping. His tears splashed upon her hand and upon his own hand; they fell warm and wet: something else warm and wet touched his hand. Abruptly he became aware of a dark stain under Esme's head; it oozed slowly, and spread darkly over the polished floor. She was bleeding. That had to be stopped anyway.

The shock of the accident had sobered him; the cloud cleared away from his brain and he was able to think. Quickly he went to the telephone, hunted up a number and rang up the doctor. When he was satisfied that help would arrive speedily he returned to his post beside the unconscious figure of his wife, and slipped a pillow, which one of the servants fetched at his bidding, under her head. He moved her with infinite care. He would have lifted her and carried her upstairs, but he dared not trust himself with this task which in his sober moments he could have accomplished with the utmost ease. He sat beside her, holding her hand and crying uncontrollably, until the doctor arrived and took over the direction of affairs.

Hallam, stricken with remorse, shaken, and dazed with grief, wandered aimlessly between his study and the landing, and stood outside the bedroom door, which he dared not open, waiting in a terrible suspense for information of his wife's condition.

A nurse appeared upon the scene. He did not know how she came there; he did not know who admitted her. He heard the subdued noise of her arrival, and later met her on the stairs, a quiet-eyed, resourceful-looking woman, who watched him with interested curiosity as he pa.s.sed her and went down and shut himself in his study once more. In the cold light of the dawn the house seemed alive with movement, the stealthy rustling of people coming and going on tiptoe, and the occasional murmur of voices speaking in undertones.

After what appeared to Hallam an interminable time the doctor came downstairs. He accompanied Hallam into the study and sat down opposite to him and looked with keen, understanding eyes into the haggard face of the man whose agony of mind was written indelibly on every line of the strongly marked features. Hallam's only question was: ”Win she live?”

”Oh, yes.”

The relief of this a.s.surance was so tremendous that he scarcely took in anything else that was said. The doctor outlined the injuries. A fractured base was the most serious of these. He asked permission to remove the patient to a nursing-home. The case required skilled nursing; it was a matter of time and care; absolute quiet and freedom from worry were essential. The removal could be accomplished that morning, if he were agreeable. Hallam nodded.

”I leave everything in your hands,” he said. ”You know best.”

He felt suddenly very tired. The strain of anxiety and his long night vigil began to tell. The doctor eyed him keenly, advised food and rest, and then rose and went out to his car. Hallam closed the front door after him, and turned towards the stairs which he climbed wearily.

Outside the door of Esme's room he halted to listen. There was no sound from within. The nurse was in charge he knew. He had no thought of entering; he did not desire to enter. He shrank from the idea of looking upon his wife's face: the memory of her face, still and white, with the dark fringes of her closed eyes resting on the deathlike pallor of her cheeks, haunted him; it would haunt him, he believed, all his life.

While he stood there outside her door, in the faint light that was creeping in wanly as the dawn advanced, he resolved that her life should no longer be darkened with his presence: he would go away somewhere-- anywhere,--he would become lost to the world until such time as he could feel certain that the curse which was ruining their married happiness was conquered finally and for ever. Never again should the horror of it cloud her peace.

With head sunk on his breast he turned away from the door and went into his dressing-room and threw himself, dressed as he was, upon the bed.

Book 3--CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.

Following the departure of his wife in an ambulance, Hallam made his own preparations for leaving home for an indefinite time. He purposed going into the interior. He wanted to be alone, away from the influences of civilisation and the sight of European faces, away from the memory of the past and the nightmare of recent events.

Great mental anguish, particularly anguish which is accompanied by remorse, tends to a morbid condition of mind which renders the individual liable to act in a manner altogether unusual. Hallam made his preparations as a man might do who leaves his home with no thought of ever returning. He left quite definite and detailed instructions with his solicitor, and a letter for his wife, which was only to be given to her when she was strong enough to receive communications of a startling nature. In his letter he informed her that he had left her until such time as he could with confidence feel that he would never again cause her such distress as he had done in the past. He wrote with restraint but with very deep feeling of his undying love for her and of his remorse for what had happened, and ended by bidding her keep a brave heart and carry on until his return.

He posted this letter, with instructions as to its delivery, under cover to his lawyer, and completed his personal arrangements, and left by the train going north.

He had no clear idea as to his destination at the time of entraining; his one thought was to get as far away from civilisation as possible: he intended to make for the Congo. Besides a light kit, he was provided with sufficient money and his gun, which he carried in its case. The undertaking was adventurous; but it was in no spirit of adventure that he started; his heart was heavy and his mind clouded and depressed, preoccupied with thoughts of Esme lying ill and alone in a nursing-home--too ill to concern herself about him for the present; but later he knew she would ask for him and wonder why he did not come.

That could not be avoided: she would grow reconciled to his absence, and she would get well quicker without him to worry about.

Hallam had secured a compartment to himself, a fact which gave him immense satisfaction. He leaned with his arms on the window and surveyed the lively scene on the platform in gloomy abstraction in the interval before the train started. Other pa.s.sengers leaned from the windows also for a few last words with friends who were seeing them off.