He stormed the broad, deep, carpeted stairs, pursued by a senseless
panic, But at the top his strength failed him. He felt his brain
throbbing in torture against his skull.
The old maid-servant nodded gravely, sympathetically.
"Yes, she's in, sir, but very busy--going away--sir." Going away. He
wavered in the dim hall, trying to control his flying thoughts. Going
away. And she had said nothing the night before--had not even warned
him. Some unexpected, untoward event striking in the dark. Illness. A
long separation. (And yet, he argued, he could not live without her.
She had no people who could claim her. They were dead. No one to come
between them. And there was her work. She would never leave that again.)
But there she stood in the midst of the disorder of a sudden going. Open
suit-cases, clothes strewn about the floor, she herself in some loose,
bright-coloured wrap, her brown hair tousled and her brows knit in
perplexity. She stopped short at sight of him, smiling ruefully, her
arms full.
"Oh, my dear--I'd forgotten." (Then she must have seen his face with its
dead whiteness, for she added quickly, half laughing): "Not you. Only
the time. I've not been at the hospital, and I thought I had still half
an hour. I've had to run round like mad, and even now I've got a hundred
things to do----"
He gulped. He said: "Where are you going?" in a flat, emotionless voice,
as though he did not care.
For a moment she did not answer.
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