On the morning of the fifth day the Duke of Broadmorlands received a note, which he read with somewhat annoyed curiosity.A certain Sir Nigel Anstruthers, whom it appeared he ought to be able to recall, was in the neighbourhood, and wished to see him on a parochial matter of interest."Parochial matter" was vague, and so was the Duke's recollection of the man who addressed him.If his memory served him rightly, he had met him in a country house in Somersetshire, and had heard that he was the acquaintance of the disreputable eldest son.What could a person of that sort have to say of parochial matters? The Duke considered, and then, in obedience to a rigorous conscience, decided that one ought, perhaps, to give him half an hour.
There was that in the intruder's aspect, when he arrived in the afternoon, which produced somewhat the effect of shock.In the first place, a man in his unconcealable physical condition had no right to be out of his bed.Though he plainly refused to admit the fact, his manner of bearing himself erect, and even with a certain touch of cool swagger, was, it was evident, achieved only by determined effort.He looked like a man who had not yet recovered from some evil fever.Since the meeting in Somersetshire he had aged more than the year warranted.Despite his obstinate fight with himself it was obvious that he was horribly shaky.A disagreeable scratch or cut, running from cheek to neck, did not improve his personal appearance.
He pleased his host no more than he had pleased him at their first encounter; he, in fact, repelled him strongly, by suggesting a degree of abnormality of mood which was smoothed over by an attempt at entire normality of manner.
The Duke did not present an approachable front as, after Anstruthers had taken a chair, he sat and examined him with bright blue old eyes set deep on either side of a dominant nose and framed over by white eyebrows.No, Nigel Anstruthers summed him up, it would not be easy to open the matter with the old fool.He held himself magnificently aloof, with that lack of modernity in his sense of place which, even at this late day, sometimes expressed itself here and there in the manner of the feudal survival.
"I am afraid you have been ill," with rigid civility.
"A man feels rather an outsider in confessing he has let his horse throw him into a hedge.It was my own fault entirely.I allowed myself to forget that I was riding a dangerously nervous brute.I was thinking of a painful and absorbing subject.I was badly bruised and scratched, but that was all.""What did your doctor say?"
"That I was in luck not to have broken my neck.""You had better have a glass of wine," touching a bell.
"You do not look equal to any exertion."
In gathering himself together, Sir Nigel felt he was forced to use enormous effort.It had cost him a gruesome physical struggle to endure the drive over to Broadmorlands, though it was only a few miles from Medham.There had been something unnatural in the exertion necessary to sit upright and keep his mind decently clear.That was the worst of it.The fever and raging hours of the past days and nights had so shaken him that he had become exhausted, and his brain was not alert.He was not thinking rapidly, and several times he had lost sight of a point it was important to remember.He grew hot and cold and knew his hands and voice shook, as he answered.But, perhaps--he felt desperately--signs of emotion were not bad.
"I am not quite equal to exertion," he began slowly."But a man cannot lie on his bed while some things are undone--a MAN cannot."
As the old Duke sat upright, the blue eyes under his bent brows were startled, as well as curious.Was the man going out of his mind about something? He looked rather like it, with the dampness starting out on his haggard face, and the ugly look suddenly stamped there.The fact was that the insensate fury which had possessed and torn Anstruthers as he had writhed in his inn bedroom had sprung upon him again in full force, and his weakness could not control it, though it would have been wiser to hold it in check.He also felt frightfully ill, which filled him with despair, and, through this fact, he lost sight of the effect he produced, as he stood up, shaking all over.
"I come to you because you are the one man who can most easily understand the thing I have been concealing for a good many years."The Duke was irritated.Confound the objectionable idiot, what did he mean by taking that intimate tone with a man who was not prepared to concern himself in his affairs?
"Excuse me," he said, holding up an authoritative hand, "are you going to make a confession? I don't like such things.I prefer to be excused.Personal confidences are not parochial matters.""This one is." And Sir Nigel was sickeningly conscious that he was putting the statement rashly, while at the same time all better words escaped him."It is as much a parochial matter," losing all hold on his wits and stammering, "as was--as was--the affair of--your wife."It was the Duke who stood up now, scarlet with anger.
He sprang from his chair as if he had been a young man in whom some insult had struck blazing fire.
"You--you dare!" he shouted."You insolent blackguard!
You force your way in here and dare--dare----!"And he clenched his fist, wildly shaking it.
Nigel Anstruthers, staggering on his uncertain feet, would have shouted also, but could not, though he tried, and he heard his own voice come forth brokenly.
"Yes, I dare! I--your--my own--my----!"
Swaying and tottering, he swung round to the chair he had left, and fell into it, even while the old Duke, who stood raging before him, started back in outraged amazement.What was the fellow doing? Was he ****** faces at him? The drawn malignant mouth and muscles suggested it.Was he a lunatic, indeed? But the sense of disgusted outrage changed all at once to horror, as, with a countenance still more hideously livid and twisted, his visitor slid helplessly from his seat and lay a huddling heap of clothes on the floor.
