Part 34 (1/2)

There was a long silence between the two men.

Dr. Mallet looked at the famous soldier with interest and curiosity.

General Lingard was a remarkable-looking man apart from his reputation.

But there were lines on his seamed face that told of strain--an older strain than that induced by the shocking news which had just been told him. He had now pulled himself together; he was doubtless annoyed with himself for having been so terribly affected. But Mrs. Maule possessed a very compelling, vivid personality--even the doctor could not yet think of her as anything but living.

”I'm afraid, General Lingard, that I must prepare you for a rather painful ordeal. Mr. Maule wishes to see you, and if possible at once.”

The other made an involuntary movement of recoil.

”To see me?” he repeated. ”Why should he wish to see me?” And then he added hurriedly, ”But of course I'll go and see him. He and--and Mrs.

Maule”--he brought out her name with an effort--”have both been most kind to me, though our acquaintance has been short.”

Again there was a pause. And then Lingard said abruptly, ”Well--shall I go up and see him now? I--I suppose you will come with me?” If restrained, there was no less an appeal in his hushed voice.

”I'll just go up with you, and then I'm afraid I shall have to leave you with him. Perhaps I ought to tell you that Mr. Maule took the news very quietly, General Lingard. He's in a sad state--a sad state. A man in that condition does not take things to heart in the same way that we who are hale and strong do.”

As they pa.s.sed along the corridor, a housemaid was engaged in drawing down the blinds, and it was into a darkened room that Lingard was introduced by the doctor.

Richard Maule did not rise to receive the condolences of his guest. He was up and in his dressing-gown, and he sat huddled in a deep invalid chair. To Lingard's eyes he looked pitifully broken.

Various feelings--anger, contemptuous pity, and an unwilling respect for the man who had, only the day before, made up his mind to face the greatest humiliation open to manhood--all these jostled one another in the soldier's mind as he stood staring down at his host.

Their hands just touched--Lingard's icy cold, Richard Maule's burning hot.

”Thank you, thank you, General Lingard. I felt sure that I should have your sympathy.”

There was an odd gleam in the stricken man's eyes, but the other, intent on preserving his own self-command, saw nothing of it.

”Do sit down. Yes, it's a strange, a most strange thing. She was always so strong, so well. Poor Athena! Thanks to you in a great measure, her last weeks of life were very bright and happy.”

He looked furtively at Lingard. The man was taking his punishment like a Stoic. But bah! what were his sufferings to those which Maule himself had endured eight years before?

”I've troubled you to come to me,” he continued, ”not so much to receive your kind sympathy, as to speak to you of Jane--of Jane Oglander. She was, as you know, my poor wife's best friend--and in a very real sense.

This will be a most terrible shock to her. She would naturally receive the news better from you than from anyone else, and I really asked to see you that I might beg you to go at once, as soon as possible, over to the Small Farm. Thanks to my good friend Dr. Mallet, we have managed to establish a cordon round the house. But of course the truth will be known very shortly in the village--if, indeed, it is not known there yet.”

Lingard rose from the chair on which he had reluctantly sat down in obedience to his host's wish.

”Yes,” he said in a low, firm voice. ”I will certainly do as you wish. I know how truly, how devotedly, Jane and Mrs. Maule loved one another.”

”It would be idle for me to pretend to you, General Lingard, now that you have formed part of our household for nearly a month, that my poor wife and I were on close or sympathetic terms--” The other made a sudden restless movement. ”It is, however, a comfort to me to feel that last night, for the first time for many years--” he was looking narrowly at his victim, and Lingard fell into the trap.

”I know--I know,” he exclaimed hastily. ”It must be a comfort to you now, Mr. Maule, to feel that you--that you--” he stopped awkwardly.

Richard Maule smiled a curious smile, and Lingard felt inexpressibly shamed, humiliated. But what was this Richard Maule was saying?

”Ah, so she told you! Strange--strange are the ways of the modern woman, General Lingard. But I suppose that to Athena you and Jane Oglander were as good as husband and wife. She thought that what she could say without impropriety to the one she could say to the other. Well, I won't keep you now. I should be sorry indeed if Jane heard what has happened from anyone but yourself.”