Various feelings--anger, contemptuous pity, and an unwilling respect for the man who had, only the day before, made up his mind to face the greatest humiliation open to manhood--all these jostled one another in the soldier's mind as he stood staring down at his host.
Their hands just touched--Lingard's icy cold, Richard Maule's burning hot.
"Thank you, thank you, General Lingard. I felt sure that I should have your sympathy."
There was an odd gleam in the stricken man's eyes, but the other, intent on preserving his own self-command, saw nothing of it.
"Do sit down. Yes, it's a strange, a most strange thing. She was always so strong, so well. Poor Athena! Thanks to you in a great measure, her last weeks of life were very bright and happy."
He looked furtively at Lingard. The man was taking his punishment like a Stoic. But bah! what were his sufferings to those which Maule himself had endured eight years before?
"I've troubled you to come to me," he continued, "not so much to receive your kind sympathy, as to speak to you of Jane--of Jane Oglander. She was, as you know, my poor wife's best friend--and in a very real sense. This will be a most terrible shock to her. She would naturally receive the news better from you than from anyone else, and I really asked to see you that I might beg you to go at once, as soon as possible, over to the Small Farm. Thanks to my good friend Dr. Mallet, we have managed to establish a cordon round the house. But of course the truth will be known very shortly in the village--if, indeed, it is not known there yet."
Lingard rose from the chair on which he had reluctantly sat down in obedience to his host's wish.
"Yes," he said in a low, firm voice. "I will certainly do as you wish. I know how truly, how devotedly, Jane and Mrs. Maule loved one another."
"It would be idle for me to pretend to you, General Lingard, now that you have formed part of our household for nearly a month, that my poor wife and I were on close or sympathetic terms--" The other made a sudden restless movement. "It is, however, a comfort to me to feel that last night, for the first time for many years--" he was looking narrowly at his victim, and Lingard fell into the trap.
"I know--I know," he exclaimed hastily. "It must be a comfort to you now, Mr. Maule, to feel that you--that you--" he stopped awkwardly.