CHAPTER XXII
BUT he knew he would go to see if he could rest just once again in her now empty room.
He would open the door and go in.
Exhausted and cold, he stumbled and plodded along in the dark, eyes haunted, and tortured mind thinking and singing. To make the punishment fit the crime—the punishment fit the crime!
For what could be greater punishment, than his abject loneliness now?
And supposing the miracle of finding her loyal even now, what greater punishment for him than knowing that any day and any hour, the clutching hand of the law might stretch outward to seize him from her arms and cry:
‘Your time is Here and Now—come in.’
Yet, how he prayed for that, for that very thing; that they should have their happiness together, for just a little time: to know what love was, after all the struggle.
He was so sure it was not for him, even to have that. And when he came to her door, and there was no one in the porch or in the hall, there was a silence there which seemed to tell him the truth which frightened him. The nightlight was burning in the hall as before, by the wreath of flowers there.
In the yellow light, he saw that the door of her room was open a little, and it seemed to speak to him for itself.
‘She’s gone, you poor mutt,’ it said. ‘Take your time!’
His huge and guilty hand went slowly out to the door, and he saw the ravaged picture of himself, standing there, pleading to the gloom, as he slowly pushed it open.
And yet she was there, in her chair as before, sewing. Now, as strongly as he had known she could not be there, he knew that she would be, waiting for just this moment in all time; the parcel gone, and his guilt gone with it: but herself still there, looking rather shy and awkward, and saying in her unmusical but very kind voice:
‘Good evening, Mr Bowling?’ And then saying nothing.
It was really too much for a man, thought Mr Bowling. He felt unutterably ashamed, but quite incapable of control; and he sank at once on to his knees by the fire beside her, not facing her, but close to her, and started to cry. It was a dreadful and distressing sound, and even his two great guilty hands couldn’t stop it. His shoulders heaved and he felt broken with a new and alarming happiness.
And all she did was to go on sewing for a bit, looking rather embarrassed when he tried to get out between sobs: ‘I’m so … frightfully sorry, Miss Mason!’
After that she put her knitting down and said: ‘Oh, Mr Bowling,’ in the kindest voice, and shyly put her arms about him. It was a thing she had not done to a man before, and it only made his sobs sound more dreadful and broken.
She tried very hard to make him stop, but the moment stayed for them both, both always calling each other Miss Mason and Mr Bowling, and both sounding very kind and fond of each other.
And there in the firelight they stayed for a long time, she rocking his large body gently and rather awkwardly to and fro, and saying in her kindly voice:
‘Oh, Mr Bowling, don’t cry any more! We can go and have walks by the sea! And we can have talks with father! I’m quite sure everything is going to come right?’ She rocked him to and fro, and tried to pull his hands from his face. She never once mentioned murder—there was breeding for you! She simply pleaded: ‘You really mustn’t cry, it makes me so unhappy! There, there,’ she said. ‘There, there …!’
THE END
THE DETECTIVE STORY CLUB
E. C. BENTLEY • TRENT’S LAST CASE
E. C. BENTLEY • TRENT INTERVENES
E. C. BENTLEY & H. WARNER ALLEN • TRENT’S OWN CASE
ANTHONY BERKELEY • THE WYCHFORD POISONING CASE
ANTHONY BERKELEY • THE SILK STOCKING MURDERS
LYNN BROCK • NIGHTMARE
BERNARD CAPES • THE MYSTERY OF THE SKELETON KEY
AGATHA CHRISTIE • THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD
AGATHA CHRISTIE • THE BIG FOUR
WILKIE COLLINS • THE MOONSTONE
HUGH CONWAY • CALLED BACK
HUGH CONWAY • DARK DAYS
EDMUND CRISPIN • THE CASE OF THE GILDED FLY
FREEMAN WILLS CROFTS • THE CASK
FREEMAN WILLS CROFTS • THE PONSON CASE
FREEMAN WILLS CROFTS • THE PIT-PROP SYNDICATE
FREEMAN WILLS CROFTS • THE GROOTE PARK MURDER
MAURICE DRAKE • THE MYSTERY OF THE MUD FLATS
FRANCIS DURBRIDGE • BEWARE OF JOHNNY WASHINGTON
J. JEFFERSON FARJEON • THE HOUSE OPPOSITE
RUDOLPH FISHER • THE CONJURE-MAN DIES
FRANK FROËST • THE GRELL MYSTERY
FRANK FROËST & GEORGE DILNOT • THE CRIME CLUB
ÉMILE GABORIAU • THE BLACKMAILERS
ANNA K. GREEN • THE LEAVENWORTH CASE
PHILIP MACDONALD • THE RASP
PHILIP MACDONALD • THE NOOSE
PHILIP MACDONALD • THE RYNOX MYSTERY
PHILIP MACDONALD • MURDER GONE MAD
PHILIP MACDONALD • THE MAZE
NGAIO MARSH • THE NURSING HOME MURDER
G. ROY McRAE • THE PASSING OF MR QUINN
R. A. V. MORRIS • THE LYTTLETON CASE
ARTHUR B. REEVE • THE ADVENTURESS
FRANK RICHARDSON • THE MAYFAIR MYSTERY
R. L. STEVENSON • DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE
J. V. TURNER • BELOW THE CLOCK
EDGAR WALLACE • THE TERROR
ISRAEL ZANGWILL • THE PERFECT CRIME
FURTHER TITLES IN PREPARATION
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