Edwin did not like her voice. It reminded him of the voice of the nurse whom he had just left.

The girl, looking round, perceived that it was not Tertius Ingpen who had come in. She gave a short, faint scream, then gathered herself together and with a single movement stood up, perfectly collected and on the defensive.

"It's all right! It's all right!" said Edwin. "Mr. Ingpen gave me his keys and asked me to come over and get some papers he wants.... I hope I didn't frighten you. I'd no idea----"

She was old! She was old! That is to say, she was not the girl he had seen asleep. Before his marriage he would have put her age at thirty-two, but now he knew enough to be sure that she must be more than that. She was not graceful in movement. The expression of her pale face was not agreeable. Her gestures were not distinguished. And she could not act her part in the idyll. Moreover her frock was shabby and untidy. But chiefly she was old. Had she been young, Edwin would have excused all the rest. Romance was not entirely destroyed, but very little remained.

He thought, disdainfully, and as if resenting a deception:

"Is this the best he can do?"

And the Five Towns sank back to its ancient humble place in his esteem.

The woman said with a silly nervous giggle:

"I called to see Mr. Ingpen. He wasn't expecting me. And I suppose while I was waiting I must have dropped off to sleep."

It might have been true, but to Edwin it was inexpressibly inane.

She seized her hat and then her cloak.

"I'm sorry to say Mr. Ingpen's had an accident," said Edwin.

She stopped, both hands above her head fingering her hat.

"An accident? Nothing serious?"

"Oh no! I don't think so," he lied. "A machinery accident. They had to take him to the Clowes Hospital at Bursley. I've just come from there."

She asked one or two more questions, all the time hurrying her preparations to leave. But Edwin judged with disgust that she was not deeply interested in the accident. True, he had minimised it, but she ought not to have allowed him to minimise it. She ought to have obstinately believed that it was very grave.

"I do hope he'll soon be all right," she said, s.n.a.t.c.hing at her gloves and going to the door. "Good night!" She gave another silly giggle, preposterous in a woman of her age. Then she stopped. "I think you're gentleman enough not to say anything about me being here," she said, rather nastily. "It was quite an accident. I could easily explain it, but you know what people are!"

What a phrase--"I think you're gentleman enough!"

He blushed and offered the required a.s.surance.

"Can I let you out?" he started forward.

"No, thanks!"

"But you can't open the door."

"Yes I can."

"The stairs are all dark."

"Please don't trouble yourself," she said drily, in the tone of a woman who sees offence in the courtesy of a male travelling companion on the railway.

He heard her steps _diminuendo_ down the stairs.

Closing the door, he went to the window, and drew aside the blind.

Perhaps she would pa.s.s up the Square. But she did not pa.s.s up the Square which was peopled by nothing but meek gaslamps under the empire of the glowing clock in the pediment of the Old Town Hall. Where had she gone?

Where did she come from? Her accent had no noticeable peculiarity. Was she married, or single, or a widow? Perhaps there was hidden in her some strange and seductive quality which he had missed.... He saw the slim girl again reclining in the basket-chair.... After all, she was a woman, and she had been in Ingpen's room, waiting for him!

Later, seated in front of the open drawer in the old desk, gathering together letters and photographs--photographs of her in adroitly managed poses, taken at Oldham; letters in a woman's hand--he was penetrated to the marrow by the disastrous and yet beautiful infelicity of things.

The mere sight of the letters (of which he forebore to decipher a single word, even a signature) nearly made him cry; the photographs were tragic with the intolerable evanescence of life. By the will of Tertius Ingpen helpless on the bed in the hospital, these doc.u.ments of a pa.s.sion or of a fancy were to be burnt. Why? Was it true that Ingpen was dying?

Better to keep them. No, they must be burnt. He rose, and, with difficulty, burnt them by instalments in a shovel over the tiny fender that enclosed the gas-stove,--the room was soon half full of smoke....

Why had he deceived the woman as to the seriousness of Ingpen's accident? To simplify and mitigate the interview, to save himself trouble; that was all! Well, she would learn soon enough!

His eye caught a print on the wall above the bed,--a cla.s.sic example of the sentimentality of Marcus Stone: departing cavalier, drooping maiden, terraced garden. It was a dreadful indictment of the Tertius Ingpen who talked so well, with such intellectual aplomb, with such detachment and exceptional cynicism. It was like a ray exposing some secret sinister corner in the man's soul. He had hung up that print because it gave him pleasure! Poor chap! But Edwin loved him. He decided that he would call again at the hospital before returning to Auntie Hamps's.

Impossible that the man was dying! If the doctor or the matron had thought he was in danger they would have summoned his relatives. He might be dying. He might be dead. He must have immediately feared death, or he would not have imposed upon Edwin such an errand.... What simple, touching, admirable trust in a friend's loyalty the man had displayed!

Edwin put out the gas-stove, which exploded, lit a match, gave a great yawn, put out the gas, and began the enterprise of leaving the house.

III

"Look here! I must have some tea, _now_!" said Edwin curtly and yet appealingly to Maggie, who opened the door for him at Auntie Hamps's.

It was nearly eight o'clock. He had been to the hospital again, and, having reported in three words to Ingpen, whose condition was unchanged, had remained there some time. But he had said nothing to Ingpen about the woman. At six o'clock the matron had come into the room, and the nurse thenceforward until seven o'clock, when she went off duty, was a changed girl. Edwin slightly knew the matron, who was sympathetic but strangely pessimistic--considering her healthy, full figure.

"The water's boiling," answered Maggie, in a comforting tone, and disappeared instantly into the kitchen.

Edwin thought:

"There are some things that girl understands!"

She had shown no curiosity, no desire to impart news, because she had immediately comprehended that Edwin was, or imagined himself to be, at the end of his endurance. Maggie, with simple and surpa.s.sing wisdom had just said to herself: "He's been out all night, and he's not used to it." For a moment he felt that Maggie was wiser, and more intimately close to him, than anybody else in the world.

"In the dining-room," she called out from the kitchen.

And in the small dining-room there was a fire! It was like a living, welcoming creature. The cloth was laid, the gas was lighted. On the table was beautiful fresh bread and b.u.t.ter. A word, a tone, a glance of his on the previous evening had been enough to bring back the dining-room into use! Happily the wind suited the chimney. He had scarcely sat down in front of the fire when Maggie entered with the teapot. And at the sight of the teapot Edwin felt that he was saved.

Before the tea was out of the teapot it had already magically alleviated the desperate sensations of physical fatigue and moral weariness which had almost overcome him on the way from the hospital in the chill and muddy dawn.

"What will you have to eat?" said Maggie.

"Nothing. I couldn't eat to save my life."

"Perhaps you'll have a bit of bread-and-b.u.t.ter later," said Maggie blandly.

He shook his head.

"How is she?"

"Worse," said Maggie. "But she's slept."