All the same he had replied at once, asking if he might come and say good-bye before she left Scarfedale. And she had sent him a telegram—“Delighted—to-morrow—five o’clock.”
And he was going—out of a kind of recklessness—kind of obstinate recoil against the sorrowful or depressing circumstance of life. He had given up all thoughts of trying to win her back, even if there were any chance of it. His pride would not let him sue as a pauper; and of course the Langmoors to whom she was going—he understood—from Scarfedale, would take good care she did not throw herself away. Quite right too. Very likely the Tamworths would capture her; and Bletchley was quite a nice fellow.
When he did see her, what could they talk about? Radowitz?
He would like to send a message through her to Radowitz—to say something—
What could he say? He had seen Radowitz for a few minutes after the inquest—to thank him for his evidence—and for what he had done for Sir Arthur. Both had hurried through it. Falloden had seemed to himself stricken with aphasia. His mouth was dry, his tongue useless. And Radowitz had been all nerves, a nickering colour—good God, how deathly he looked!
Afterwards he had begun a letter to Radowitz, and had toiled at it, sometimes at dead of night and in a feverish heat of brain. But he had never finished or sent it. What was the use? Nothing was changed. That black sling and the damaged hand in it stood for one of those hard facts that no wishing, and no sentimentalising, and no remorse could get over.
“I wish to God I had let him alone!”