“You want her kept from me.”

Adrian bowed his head.

“That may be,” he said, gently. “But look here, Ferse, you’re just as well able to gauge this situation as myself. Put yourself in her place. Imagine her coming in, as she may at any minute, seeing you without warning, knowing nothing of your recovery, needing time to believe in it—with all her memories of you as you were. What chance are you giving yourself?”

Ferse groaned. “What chance shall I be given, if I don’t take any chance I can? Do you think I trust anyone now? Try it—try four years of it, and see!” and his eyes went swiftly round: “Try being watched, try being treated like a dangerous child. I’ve looked on at my own treatment, as a perfectly sane man, for the last three months. If my own wife can’t take me for what I am—clothed and in my right mind, who will or can?”

Adrian went up to him.

“Gently!” he said: “That’s where you’re wrong. Only SHE knew you at the worst. It should be more difficult for her than for anyone.”

Ferse covered his face.

Adrian waited, grey with anxiety; but when Ferse uncovered his face again he could not bear the look on it, and turned his eyes away.

“Talk of loneliness!” said Ferse. “Go off your chump, Cherrell, then you’ll know what it means to be lonely for the rest of your days.”

Adrian put a hand on his shoulder.

“Look here, my dear fellow, I’ve got a spare room at my digs, come and put up with me till we get things straightened out.” Sudden suspicion grinned from Ferse’s face, an intense searching look came into his eyes; it softened as if with gratitude, grew bitter, softened again.

“You were always a white man, Cherrell; but no, thanks—I couldn’t. I must be here. Foxes have holes, and I’ve still got this.”

Adrian sighed.

“Very well; then we must wait for her. Have you seen the children?”

“No. Do they remember me?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Do they know I’m alive?”

“Yes. They know that you’re away, ill.”

“Not—?” Ferse touched his forehead.

“No. Shall we go up to them?”

Ferse shook his head, and at that moment through the window Adrian saw Diana coming. He moved quietly towards the door. What was he to do or say? His hand was on the knob when Ferse pushed by him into the hall. Diana had come in with her latchkey. Adrian could see her face grow deadly pale below the casque of her close hat. She recoiled against the wall.

“It’s all right, Diana,” he said quickly, and held open the dining-room door. She came from the wall, passed them both into the room, and Ferse followed.

“If you want to consult me I shall be here,” said Adrian, and closed the door…

Husband and wife stood breathing as if they had run a hundred yards instead of walking three.

“Diana!” said Ferse: “Diana!”

It seemed as if she couldn’t speak, and his voice rose:

“I’m all right. Don’t you believe me?”

She bent her head, and still didn’t speak.

“Not a word to throw to a dog?”

“It’s—it’s the shock.”

“I have come back sane, I have been sane for three months now.”

“I am so glad, so glad.”

“My God! You’re as beautiful as ever.”

And suddenly he gripped her, pressed her hard against him, and began kissing her hungrily. When he let her go, she sank breathless into a chair, gazing at him with an expression of such terror that he put his hands over his face.

“Ronald—I couldn’t—I couldn’t let it be as it was before. I couldn’t—I couldn’t!”

He dropped on his knees at her feet. “I didn’t mean to be violent. Forgive me!”

And then, from sheer exhaustion of the power of feeling, both rose and moved apart.

“We had better talk it over quietly,” said Ferse.

“Yes.”

“Am I not to live here?”

“It’s your house. You must do whatever’s best for you.”

He uttered the sound that was so like a laugh.

“It would be best for me if you and everyone would treat me exactly as if nothing had happened to me.”

Diana was silent. She was silent so long that again he made that sound.

“Don’t!” she said. “I will try. But I must—I must have a separate room.”

Ferse bowed. Suddenly his eyes darted at her. “Are you in love with Cherrell?”

“No.”

“With anyone?”

“No.”

“Scared then?”

“Yes.”

“I see. Naturally. Well, it’s not for God’s playthings to make terms. We take what we can get. Will you wire for them to send my things from that place? That will save any fuss they might want to make. I came away without saying good-bye. There is probably something owing too.”

“Of course. I will see to all that.”

“Can we let Cherrell go now?”

“I will tell him.”

“Let me!”

“No, Ronald, I will,” and she moved resolutely past him.

Adrian was leaning against the wall opposite the door. He looked up at her and tried to smile; he had divined the upshot.

“He is to stay here, but apart. My dear, thank you so much for all. Will you see to that Home for me? I will let you know everything. I’ll take him up to the children now. Good-bye!” He kissed her hand and went out.

CHAPTER 16

Hubert Cherrell stood outside his father’s club in Pall Mall, a senior affair of which he was not yet a member. He was feeling concerned, for he had a respect for his father somewhat odd in days when fathers were commonly treated as younger brethren, or alluded to as ‘that old man.’ Nervously therefore he entered an edifice wherein more people had held more firmly to the prides and prejudices of a lifetime than possibly anywhere else on earth. There was little however, either of pride or prejudice, about the denizens of the room into which he was now shown. A short alert man with a pale face and a tooth-brush moustache was biting the end of a pen, and trying to compose a letter to ‘The Times’ on the condition of Iraq; a modest-looking little Brigadier General with a bald forehead and grey moustache was discussing with a tall modest-looking Lieutenant Colonel the flora of the island of Cyprus; a man of square build, square cheek-bones and lion-like eyes, was sitting in the window as still as if he had just buried an aunt and were thinking whether or not he would try and swim the Channel next year; and Sir Conway himself was reading ‘Whitaker’s Almanac.’

“Hallo, Hubert! This room’s too small. Come into the hall.” Hubert had the instant feeling not only that he wanted to say something to his father, but that his father wanted to say something to him. They sat down in a recess.

“What’s brought you up?”

“I want to get married, Sir.”

“Married?”

“To Jean Tasburgh.”

“Oh!”

“We thought of getting a special licence and having no fuss.”

The General shook his head. “She’s a fine girl, and I’m glad you feel like that, but the fact is your position’s queer, Hubert. I’ve just been hearing.”

Hubert noticed suddenly how worn-looking was his father’s face. “That fellow you shot. They’re pressing for your extradition on a charge of murder.”

“What?”

“It’s a monstrous business, and I can’t believe they’ll go on with it in the face of what you say about his going for you—luckily you’ve still got his scar on your arm; but it seems there’s the deuce of a fuss in the Bolivian papers; and those half-castes are sticking together about it.”

“I must see Hallorsen at once.”

“The authorities won’t be in a hurry, I expect.”

After this, the two sat silent in the big hall, staring in front of them with very much the same expression on their faces. At the back of both their minds the fear of this development had lurked, but neither had ever permitted it to take definite shape; and its wretchedness was therefore the more potent. To the General it was even more searing than to Hubert. The idea that his only son could be haled half across the world on a charge of murder was as horrible as a nightmare.