“He is a sailor on merchant vessels.” Her gesture vaguely encompassed the Seven Seas. “Where he is, or when, is as indeterminate as wind and tide.”
Lieutenant Valcour did not molest her extravagance. He refrained from pointing out that few things were determined quite so accurately, nowadays, as the tides or, for the matter of that, the winds themselves. He stood up.
“Thank you, Mrs. Siddons.”
“Shall I go?”
“If you will be so kind. Later, perhaps, we will go into greater details concerning this poor girl’s husband.”
Mrs. Siddons feasted her eyes for one parting, blinding instinct on the bed. She stopped at the door and said, “You will never get them from me, Lieutenant. And I am the only person who knows; who even knows that she was married at all. She confided in me, and if it was her husband who did this thing you will never drag his name from my lips even if my silence should mean—” Her eyes became clouded and her thoughts confused. She wanted to say something magnificent, something splendidly fitting to the occasion which she interpreted quite sincerely as a divine act on the part of God, with that poor, frail little Maizie’s husband as His instrument on earth. Even if her silence were to mean what? The words wouldn’t form. They rattled around in her tired head meaninglessly: bar of justice—herself in the dock—oh, it was cruel—life was cruel, and living was crueler still. Only death was kind, sleep and peace beneath the shelter of His sweet omnipotence. She stumbled a little as she crossed the threshold and made her way, sobbing futilely, back upstairs.