‘I can’t come — now. I
have a dreadful headache.’
‘You only want to be quiet. Come along.’
The hansom had pulled up. Alma, ashamed to resist
under the eyes of the driver, stepped in, and her
companion placed himself at her side. As soon
as they drove away he caught her hand and held it tightly.
‘I can’t go to your rooms,’ said
Alma, after a useless resistance. ’My head
is terrible. Tell me whatever you have to say,
and then take me to Baker Street Station. I’ll
see you again in a day or two.’
She did not feign the headache. It had been coming
on since she left home, and was now so severe that
her eyes closed under the torture of the daylight.
‘A little rest and you’ll be all right,’
said Dymes.
Five minutes more would bring them to their destination.
Alma pulled away her hand violently.
‘If you don’t stop him, I shall.’
‘You mean it? As you please. You know
what I ——’
Alma raised herself, drew the cabman’s attention,
and bade him drive to Baker Street. There was
a short silence, Dymes glaring and muttering inarticulately.
‘Of course, if you really have a bad headache,’
he growled at length.
‘Indeed I have — and you treat me
very unkindly.’
’Hang it, Alma, don’t speak like that!
As if I could be unkind to you!’
He secured her hand again, and she did not resist.
Then they talked of business, settled one or two matters,
appointed another meeting. As they drew near
to the station, Alma spoke impulsively, with a bewildered
look.
‘I shouldn’t wonder if I give it up, after
all.’
‘Rot!’ was her companion’s amazed
exclamation.
‘I might. I won’t answer for it.
And it would be your fault.’
Stricken with alarm, Dymes poured forth assurances
of his good behaviour. He followed her down to
the platform, and for a quarter of an hour she had
to listen, in torment of mind and body, to remonstrances,
flatteries, amorous blandishments, accompanied by the
hiss of steam and the roar of trains.
On reaching home she could do nothing but lie down
in the dark. Her head ached intolerably; and
hour after hour, as often happens when the brain is
over-wearied, a strain of music hummed incessantly
on her ear, till inability to dismiss it made her
cry in half-frenzied wretchedness.
With sleep she recovered; but through the next day,
dull and idle, her thoughts kept such a gloomy colour
that she well-nigh brought herself to the resolve
with which she had threatened Felix Dymes. But
for the anticipation of Harvey’s triumph, she
might perhaps have done so.
