did know, and what an icy shiver had gone through him, for
all that the next moment he was fondling her shoulders. Yes, she had
made him suffer! Divorce! It seemed ridiculous, after all these years of
utter separation! But it would have to be. No other way! 'The
question,' he thought with sudden realism, 'is--which of us? She or me?
She deserted me. She ought to pay for it. There'll be someone, I
suppose.' Involuntarily he uttered a little snarling sound, and,
turning, made his way back to Park Lane.

CHAPTER V

JAMES SEES VISIONS

The butler himself opened the door, and closing it softly, detained
Soames on the inner mat.

"The master's poorly, sir," he murmured. "He wouldn't go to bed till you
came in. He's still in the diningroom."

Soames responded in the hushed tone to which the house was now
accustomed.

"What's the matter with him, Warmson?"

"Nervous, sir, I think. Might be the funeral; might be Mrs. Dartie's
comin' round this afternoon. I think he overheard something. I've took
him in a negus. The mistress has just gone up."

Soames hung his hat on a mahogany stag's-horn.

"All right, Warmson, you can go to bed; I'll take him up myself." And he
passed into the dining-room.

James was sitting before the fire, in a big armchair, with a camel-hair
shawl, very light and warm, over his frock-coated shoulders, on to which
his long white whiskers drooped. His white hair, still fairly thick,
glistened in the lamplight; a little moisture from his fixed, light-grey
eyes stained the cheeks, still quite well coloured, and the long deep
furrows running to the corners of the clean-shaven lips, which moved as
if mumbling thoughts. His long legs, thin as a crow's, in shepherd's
plaid trousers, were bent at less than a right angle, and on one knee a
spindly hand moved continually, with fingers wide apart and glistening
tapered nails. Beside him, on a low stool, stood a half-finished glass
of negus, bedewed with beads of heat. There he had been sitting, with
intervals for meals, all day. At eighty-eight he was still organically
sound, but suffering terribly from the thought that no one ever told him
anything. It is, indeed, doubtful how he had become aware that Roger was
being buried that day, for Emily had kept it from him. She was always
keeping things from him. Emily was only seventy! James had a grudge
against his wife's youth. He felt sometimes that he would never have
married he