Jewdwine had wired from London, “Thanks.  Letter received; will write.”  That was on the seventeenth, and it was now the twenty-seventh and Jewdwine had not written.  Rickman should have been back in London long before that time; he had allowed himself four days to finish his horrible work; and he had finished it.  But as it happened the end of twelve days found him still in Harmouth.  Seven of them passed without his being very vividly aware of them, though up till now he had kept a strict account of time.  Two weeks once struck off the reckoning, he had come down to calculating by days, by hours, by half hours, to measuring minutes as if they had been drops of some precious liquid slowly evaporating.  And now he had let a whole week go by without comment, while he lay in bed in his room at the Marine Hotel, doing nothing, not even sleeping.  For seven days Mr. Rickman had been ill.  The broad term nervous fever was considered to have sufficiently covered all his symptoms.

They were not improved by the discovery that Jewdwine had failed to give any sign; while the only reply sent by Rickman’s was a brief note from his father to the effect that Keith’s letter should have his very best consideration, and that by the time he saw him he would no doubt be in a better position to answer it.  There was a postcard written on the twenty-first, inquiring the cause of his non-appearance on the twentieth.  This had been answered by the doctor.  It had been followed by a letter of purely parental solicitude, in which all mention of business was avoided.  Avoided; and it was now the twenty-seventh.

Rickman literally flung from his sick-bed a feverish and illegible note to Horace Jewdwine.  “For God’s sake, wire me what you mean to do,” an effort which sent his temperature up considerably.  He passed these days of convalescence in an anxious watching for the post.  To the chambermaid, to the head waiter, to the landlord and landlady of the Marine Hotel, to the friendly commercial gentleman, who put his head twice a day round the door to inquire “‘ow he was gettin’ on,” Mr. Rickman had during his seven days’ illness put the same unvarying question.  These persons had adopted a policy of silence, shaking their heads or twisting their mouths into the suggestion of a “No,” by way of escape from the poignancy of the situation.  But on the afternoon of the twenty-ninth, Mr. Rickman being for the first time up and dressed, Tom, the waiter, replied to the accustomed query with a cheerful “No sir, no letters; but a lady was inquiring for you this morning, sir.”  In Tom’s mind a lady and a letter amounted to very much the same thing.

“Do you know who it was?”

“Yes sir, Miss Palliser.”

“Miss Parry?  I don’t know any Miss Parry,” said Rickman wearily.

“I didn’t say Miss Parry, sir I said Miss Palliser, sir.  Wanted to know ’ow you was; I said you was a trifle better, sir.”

“I?  I’m all right.  I think I shall go out and take a walk.”  The violent excitement of his veins and nerves gave him the illusion of recovered strength.