“More.”

He did look a bit startled then and the smile went stiff. All the same he took the cup and saucer and went away. I sat with my painful arms round my knees. It had started down in Schwillen when—of all things!—I had felt lonely and had not been enjoying it—I, Wilf Barclay, a specialist in loneliness if ever there was one! I chewed over the steps that had put me in this position of all that I had not wanted to find myself in. The door of the bedroom was open and I could see beyond it, in the sitting-room, how Rick’s billet-doux lay on the table still, unsigned, unmoved. My shakes and memories began to be consumed by another feeling that at least restored some personality to me. It was a tide of sheer fury. When Rick came back with another steaming cup I flung over on the pillow and would not look at him. I muttered my accusation.

“It seems I owe you my life.”

Chapter IX

Fury, hatred and fear. Somewhere in my paroxysm I was so fierce with him that he took himself off and I was there in my shirt and pants, shaking like a machine with a part missing. First his wife, then when that ploy failed, my life, my own damned, sweet, secret possession, handed back to me, but now, as I saw, on conditions like the surrender of a city. Also there was something else to add—a physical detestation of his strength and warmth and stink!

It was the manager who brought me dope from the doctor and I sank into a sleep beyond dreams, still making plans, such as tempting them both to a cliff. There’s no doubt about it. Shock had unbalanced my mechanism. At one point I had Tucker writing my biography but with such strict supervision it included for the world’s inspection an account of how he had attempted the virtue of St Wilfred with the offer of his beautiful wife; an offer rejected with such gentle tact and kindness that he (Assistant Professor Rick L. Tucker) flung himself on his knees and received such a gigantic hack in his privates from one of those boots that were no good for rough country he immediately entered a monastery, leaving his beautiful wife to—

Yes, I was unbalanced, there’s no doubt about it. But the dope was good and I wish I knew what it was.

I woke with aching shoulders and a blank mind. I looked at my watch and it took me some time to work out that today was in fact tomorrow. My mouth tasted as if it were lined with nasty metal. I washed it with cold water for a long time. My legs were inclined to give way. With the memory of the day before there came very little fury or hatred. All that came of those weird sisters was fear, not to say panic. As if recovery from the dope implied that I was on my own and open now for business, I saw the dreadful results of giving Rick any permission whatever—that determined, sedulous search into a past raw with unforgiving memories! That girl impossible for me, such a danger, such a grief!