Part 74 (1/2)

He felt sick. Janet might have been a doctor who had informed him that he was suffering from an unexpected disease, and that an operation severe and perilous lay in front of him. The impartial observer in him asked somewhat disdainfully why he should allow himself to be deranged in this physical manner, and he could only reply feebly and very meekly that he did not know. He felt sick.

Suddenly he said to himself making a discovery--

”Of course she won't come to Bursley. She'd be ashamed to meet me.”

”How long?” he demanded of Janet.

”It was last year, I think,” said Janet, with emotion increased, her voice heavy with the load of its sympathy. When he first knew Janet an extraordinary quick generous concern for others had been one of her chief characteristics. But of late years, though her deep universal kindness had not changed, she seemed to have hardened somewhat on the surface. Now he found again the earlier Janet.

”You never told me.”

”The truth is, we didn't know,” Janet said, and without giving Edwin time to put another question, she continued: ”The poor thing's had a great deal of trouble, a very great deal. George's health, now! The sea air doesn't suit him. And Hilda couldn't possibly leave Brighton.”

”Oh! She's still at Brighton?”

”Yes.”

”Let me see--she used to be at--what was it?--Preston Street?”

Janet glanced at him with interest: ”What a memory you've got! Why, it's ten years since she was here!”

”Nearly!” said Edwin. ”It just happened to stick in my mind. You remember she came down to the shop to ask me about trains and things the day she left.”

”Did she?” Janet exclaimed, raising her eyebrows.

Edwin had been suspecting that possibly Hilda had given some hint to Janet as to the nature of her relations with him. He now ceased to suspect that. He grew easier. He gathered up the reins again, though in a rather limp hand.

”Why is she so bound to stay in Brighton?” he inquired with affected boldness.

”She's got a boarding-house.”

”I see. Well, it's a good thing she has a private income of her own.”

”That's just the point,” said Janet sadly. ”We very much doubt if she has any private income any longer.”

Edwin waited for further details, but Janet seemed to speak unwilling.

She would follow him, but she would not lead.

FOUR.

Behind them he could hear the stir of Mrs Hamps's departure. She and Maggie were coming down the stairs. Guessing not the dramatic arrival of Janet Orgreave and the mysterious nephew, Mrs Hamps, having peeped into the empty dining-room, said: ”I suppose the dear boy has gone,” and forthwith went herself. Edwin smiled cruelly at the thought of what her joy would have been actually to inspect the mysterious nephew at close quarters, and to learn the strange suspicious truth that he was not a nephew after all.

”Auntie!” yelled the boy across the garden.

”Come along, we must go now,” Janet retorted.

”No! I want you to swing me. Make me swing very high.”

”George!”