Afterwards Part 19

"It is sweet--and kind--of you to say just that." Even now his voice was not quite steady. "And if I could believe it--but all the time I tell myself if I had only waited ... there would perhaps have been a chance ... I was too quick, too ready to obey her request, to carry out my promise...."

"No, Dr. Anstice." In Iris' voice was a womanliness which showed his story had reached the depths of her being. "I'm quite certain that's the wrong way to look at it. As things were, there was nothing else to be done, _nothing_. If I had been the girl," said Iris quietly, "I should have thought you very cruel if you had broken your promise to me."

"Ah, yes," he said, slowly; "but you see there is another factor in the case which I haven't told you--yet. She was engaged to be married--and by acting prematurely I destroyed the hopes of the man who loved her--whom she loved to the last second of her life."

This time Iris was silent so long that he went on speaking with an attempt at a lighter tone.

"Well, that's the story--and a pretty gloomy one, isn't it? But I have no right to inflict my private sorrows on you, and so----"

She interrupted him as though she had not heard his last words.

"Dr. Anstice, when you realized what had happened, what did you do? I mean, when you came back to England? I suppose you did come back, after that?"

"Yes. I had an interview with the man--the girl's _fiance_ and came home." He shrugged his shoulders, a bitter memory chasing away the softer emotions of the preceding moment. "What did I do? Well, I did what a dozen other fellows might have done in my place. I sought forgetfulness of the past by various means, tried to drown the thought of what had happened in every way I could, and merely succeeded in delivering myself over to a bondage a hundred times more terrible than that from which I was trying to escape."

For the first time Iris looked perplexed.

"I don't think I understand," she said, and again Anstice's face changed.

"No," he said, and his voice was gentle, "of course you don't. And there's no reason why you should. Let us leave the matter at that, Miss Wayne. I am grateful to you for listening so patiently to my story."

"Ah," she said, and her eyes were wistful, "but I should like to know what you meant just now. Won't you tell me? Or do you think I am too stupid to understand?"

"No. But I think you are too young," he said; and the girl coloured.

"Of course if you would rather not----"

Something in her manner made him suddenly change his mind.

"There is no reason why I should make a mystery of it," he said. "I hesitated about telling you because--well, for various reasons; but after all you might as well know the truth. I tried to win forgetfulness by the aid of drugs--morphia, to be exact."

He had startled her now.

"You took morphia----?" Her voice was dismayed.

"Yes, for nearly six months I gave myself up to it. I told myself there was no real danger for me--I knew the peril of it so well. I wasn't like the people who go in ignorantly for the thing; and find themselves bound hand and foot, their lives in ruins round them. That is what I thought, in my folly." He sighed, and his face looked careworn. "Well, I soon found out that I was just like other people after all. I went into the thing, thinking I should find a way out of my troubles. And I was wrong."

"You gave it up?" Her voice was suddenly anxious.

"Yes. In the nick of time I came across an old friend--a friend of my student days, who had been looking for me, unknown to me, for months. He wanted me to do some research work for him--work that necessitated visiting hospitals in Paris and Berlin and Vienna--and I accepted the commission only too gladly."

"And--you gave up the terrible thing?"

"Yes. The new interest saved me, you know. I came back, after some months of hard work, and found my friend on the eve of starting with an expedition for Central Africa, to study tropical diseases; and had there been a place for me I would have gone too. But there wasn't; and I was a bit f.a.gged, so after doing loc.u.m work for another friend for some time I looked about for a practice, bought this one--and here I am."

"Dr. Anstice "--she spoke shyly, though her eyes met his bravely--"you won't ever take that dreadful stuff again, will you? I am quite sure,"

said Iris Wayne, "that _that_ is not the way out."

"No," he answered steadily, "you are quite right. It isn't. But I haven't found the way out yet." He paused a moment; then held out his hand, and she put her uninjured left hand into it rather wonderingly. "Still, I will not seek that way out again. I will promise--no, I won't promise, for I'm only human and I couldn't bear to break a promise to _you_--but I will do my best to avoid the deadly thing for the rest of my life."

He pressed her hand gently, then dropped it as a sudden loud knock sounded on the door.

"Come in." They turned to see who the visitor might be; and to the surprise of both in walked Bruce Cheniston, an unmistakable frown on his face.

"Hullo! It is you, after all, Iris!" Anstice noted the use of her Christian name, and in the same moment remembered there was a long-standing friends.h.i.+p between the families. "I thought it was your motor-cycle I found by the roadside, with a lanky yokel mounting guard over it; and he said something about an accident----"

"Nothing very serious." Iris smiled at him in friendly fas.h.i.+on, and his face cleared. "I skidded--or the bicycle did--and I fell off and cut my wrist."

"I found Miss Wayne sitting by the roadside binding up her wound,"

interposed Anstice rather coldly, "and persuaded her to come in here and have it properly seen to. If it had not been for the rain she would have been on her way home by now."

"I see. It was lucky you pa.s.sed." Evidently Iris' presence prevented any display of hostility. "Well, the rain is over now, but"--he glanced at Iris' bandaged wrist--"you oughtn't to ride home if you're disabled.

What do you say, Dr. Anstice?"

"I think, seeing it is the right wrist, it would be neither wise nor easy for Miss Wayne to ride," said Anstice professionally, and Cheniston nodded.

"Well, we will leave the cycle here, and send one of the men for it presently," he said. "Luckily I have got Chloe's car, and I can soon run you over, Iris. I suppose that is your motor outside?" he added, turning to Anstice with sudden briskness.

"Yes." Anstice glanced towards the window. "It is fine now, and I must be off, at any rate."

He packed the things he had used back into their little case, and turned towards the door.

"Good morning, Miss Wayne. I hope your wrist won't give you any further pain."

"Good-bye, Dr. Anstice." She held out her left hand with a smile. "Ever so many thanks. I don't know what I should have done if you had not pa.s.sed just then!"

The trio went out together, after a word to the mistress of the cottage; and Bruce helped Iris into the car with an air of proprietors.h.i.+p which did not escape the notice of the other man.

"Hadn't you better start first, Dr. Anstice?" Cheniston spoke with cool courtesy. "Your time is more valuable than ours, no doubt!"

"Thanks. Yes, I haven't time to waste." His tone was equally cool. "Good morning, Miss Wayne. 'Morning, Cheniston."

A moment later he had started his engine; and in yet another moment his car was out of sight round the corner of the road.

CHAPTER VIII

After the episode in the wayside cottage on that showery morning of May Anstice made no further attempt to avoid Iris Wayne.

The way in which she had received his story had lifted a weight off his mind. She had not shrunk from him, as in his morbid distrust he had fancied possible. Rather she had shown him only the sweetest, kindest pity; and it seemed to him that on the occasion of their next meeting she had greeted him with a new warmth in her manner which was surely intended to convey to him the fact that she had appreciated the confidence he had bestowed upon her.

Besides--like the rest of us Anstice was a sophist at heart--the kindness with which Sir Richard Wayne had consistently treated him was surely deserving of grat.i.tude at least.

It would be discourteous, if nothing more, to refuse his invitations save when the press of work precluded their acceptance; and so it came about that Anstice once more entered the hospitable doors which guarded Greengates, incidentally making the acquaintance of Lady Laura Wells, Sir Richard's widowed sister, who kept house for him with admirable skill, if at times with rather overbearing imperiousness.