Soames had done for him! And this judgment was in George’s eyes.

“They talk of suicide here,” he said at last. “ That cat won’t jump.”

Soames shook his head. “An accident,” he muttered.

Clenching his fist on the paper, George crammed it into his pocket. He could not resist a parting shot.

“H’mm! All flourishing at home? Any little Soameses yet?”

With a face as white as the steps of Jobson’s, and a lip raised as if snarling, Soames brushed past him and was gone.⁠ ⁠…

On reaching home, and entering the little lighted hall with his latchkey, the first thing that caught his eye was his wife’s gold-mounted umbrella lying on the rug chest. Flinging off his fur coat, he hurried to the drawing-room.

The curtains were drawn for the night, a bright fire of cedar-logs burned in the grate, and by its light he saw Irene sitting in her usual corner on the sofa. He shut the door softly, and went towards her. She did not move, and did not seem to see him.

“So you’ve come back?” he said. “Why are you sitting here in the dark?”

Then he caught sight of her face, so white and motionless that it seemed as though the blood must have stopped flowing in her veins; and her eyes, that looked enormous, like the great, wide, startled brown eyes of an owl.

Huddled in her grey fur against the sofa cushions, she had a strange resemblance to a captive owl, bunched in its soft feathers against the wires of a cage. The supple erectness of her figure was gone, as though she had been broken by cruel exercise; as though there were no longer any reason for being beautiful, and supple, and erect.

“So you’ve come back,” he repeated.