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The touch of her hands on his temples reminded him of forgotten caresses. And he did really feel as though, within a quarter of an hour, he had been through a long and dreadful illness and was now convalescent.

II

“Then you think that after starting she thought better of it?” said Lord Bargrave after dinner that night. “And came back?”

Lord Bargrave was Gertrude’s cousin, and he and his wife sometimes came over from Shropshire for a week-end. He sat with Sir Cloud in the smoking-room; a man with greying hair and a youngish, equable face.

“Yes, Harry, that was it. You see, I’d just happened to put the letter exactly where I found it. She’s no notion that I’ve seen it.”

“She’s a thundering good actress!” observed Lord Bargrave, sipping some whisky. “I knew something was up at dinner, but I didn’t know it from her: I knew it from you.”

Sir Cloud smiled sadly.

“Well, you see, I’m supposed to be ill–at least, to be not well.”

“You’d best take her away at once,” said Lord Bargrave. “And don’t do it clumsily. Say you’ll go away for a few days, and then gradually lengthen it out. She mentioned Italy, you say. Well, let it be Italy. Clear out for six months.”

“But my work here?”

“D–n your work here!” said Lord Bargrave. “Do you suppose you’re indispensable here? Do you suppose the Five Towns can’t manage without you? Our caste is decayed, my boy, and silly fools like you try to lengthen out the miserable last days of its importance by giving yourselves airs in industrial districts! Your conscience tells you that what the demagogues say is true–we are rotters on the face of the earth, we are mediaeval; and you try to drown your conscience in the noise of philanthropic speeches. There isn’t a sensible working-man in the Five Towns who doesn’t, at the bottom of his heart, assess you at your true value–as nothing but a man with a hobby, and plenty of time and money to ride it.”

“I do not agree with you,” Sir Cloud said stiffly.

“Yes, you do,” said Lord Bargrave. “At the same time I admire you, Cloud. I’m not built the same way myself, but I admire you–except in the matter of Gertrude. There you’ve been wrong–of course from the highest motives: which makes it all the worse. A man oughtn’t to put hobbies above the wife of his bosom. And, besides, she’s one of us. So take her away and stay away and make love to her.”

“Suppose I do? Suppose I try? I must tell her!”

“Tell her what?”

“That I read the letter. I acted a lie to her this afternoon. I can’t let that lie stand between us. It would not be right.”

Lord Bargrave sprang up.

“Cloud,” he cried. “For heaven’s sake, don’t be an infernal ass. Here you’ve escaped a domestic catastrophe of the first magnitude by a miracle. You’ve made a sort of peace with Gertrude. She’s come to her senses. And now you want to mess up the whole show by the act of an idiot! What if you did act a lie to her this afternoon? A very good thing! The most sensible thing you’ve done for years! Let the lie stand between you. Look at it carefully every morning when you awake. It will help you to avoid repeating in the future the high-minded errors of the past. See?”

III

And in Lady Bargrave’s dressing-room that night Gertrude was confiding in Lady Bargrave.

“Yes,” she said, “Cloud must have come in within five minutes of my leaving–two hours earlier than he was expected. Fortunately he went straight to his dressing-room. Or was it unfortunately? I was half-way to the station when it occurred to me that I hadn’t fastened the envelope! You see, I was naturally in an awfully nervous state, Minnie. So I told Collins to turn back. Fuge, our new butler, is of an extremely curious disposition, and I couldn’t bear the idea of him prying about and perhaps reading that letter before Cloud got it. And just as I was picking up the letter to fasten it I heard Cloud in the next room. Oh! I never felt so queer in all my life! The poor boy was quite unwell. I screwed up the letter and went to him. What else could I do? And really he was so tired and white–well, it moved me! It moved me. And when he spoke about going away I suddenly thought: ‘Why not try to make a new start with him?’ After all …”

There was a pause.

“What did you say in the letter?” Lady Bargrave demanded. “How did you put it?”

“I’ll read it to you,” said Gertrude, and she took the letter from her corsage and began to read it. She got as far as “I can’t stand this awful Five Towns district,” and then she stopped.

“Well, go on,” Lady Bargrave encouraged her.

“No,” said Gertrude, and she put the letter in the fire. “The fact is,” she said, going to Lady Bargrave’s chair, “it was too cruel. I hadn’t realized…. I must have been very worked-up…. One does work oneself up…. Things seem a little different now….” She glanced at her companion.

“Why, Gertrude, you’re crying, dearest!”

“What a chance it was!” murmured Gertrude, in her tears. “What a chance! Because, you know, if he had once read it I would never have gone back on it. I’m that sort of woman. But as it is, there’s a sort of hope of a sort of happiness, isn’t there?”

“Gertrude!” It was Sir Cloud’s voice, gentle and tender, outside the door.

“Mercy on us!” exclaimed Lady Bargrave. “It’s half-past one. Bargrave will have been asleep long since.”

Gertrude kissed her in silence, opened the door, and left her.