Larry waited.

“It isn’t easy to tell you,” said Barty, moistening his dry lips.  “There’s just one good thing about it, my father didn’t know—­”

“What is it?  Look sharp!”

Larry was shaking with the strain of waiting for this withheld horror.

“Tishy was caught out by the flood last night; she didn’t come home—­”

“What!  She also—?” stammered Larry.

“I wish to God she were!” said Barty, fiercely.  “No.  But while my father was going to his death, maybe when he was drowning itself, she bolted with Ned Cloherty!  They went to Dublin on the mail—­a porter at the station saw them—­there’s no doubt about it!”

Larry sat down by a table, and put his head on his arms and tried to think.  His brain was whirling.  He had covered his eyes, because he knew if he saw Barty’s tragic face again he would laugh, and if he began to laugh, he said to himself, God only knew when he would stop.  It was a fatal trick of his nerves, he could never make Barty understand.  He would be shocked and scandalised for ever.

The Doctor drowned!  He must fix his mind on that.  He mustn’t think of Tishy; if he did, he knew that this horrible, inhuman surge of joy that was pulsing in him would betray itself in his face, would overwhelm him, like the flood in the river, would sweep away all decency, sympathy, would leave him bare of all that he ought to feel and express. (But to think that he hadn’t to get married to-day!  Oh, blessed, beautiful Cloherty!) He was going to be very angry with Cloherty, as soon as he had pulled himself together.  Cloherty had behaved like a blackguard; he had blackened Larry’s face; he had shamed him; had stolen his girl—­(but, for all that, oh, Blessed and Beautiful—!)

Larry and Barty sat for awhile and talked, saying, as people will, at such moments, dull things over and over again, uninspired, conventional, stupid things.  Both were equally afraid to say the things that were in their minds about Tishy and Cloherty; Barty, because he was so angry with her that he feared he might hurt Larry; Larry, because he told himself he would have to sit down to the thing squarely, and think it out, before he knew what to say about it.  He tried to concentrate on the death of Barty’s father, but here, strangely enough, Barty seemed equally unable to respond without restraint.

“I’ve got to go on to Mount Music.  They say the flood’s down, and you can get there now,” he said, presently, in the voice from which all the colour and life had died, “I’ve arranged for a hearse.  I had a wire, early, telling me what—­what had happened.  I was wondering, Larry, would you come with me?  I’ve no right, now, to ask you, but—­” His tired voice died on the sentence, his mournful eyes sought Larry’s and said what his lips failed to say.

“My dear old chap,” said Larry, ardently, grateful for the chance of showing Barty that he bore no ill will to him, “Of course I will!  Anything I could do to help you, I’d be only too glad—­you mustn’t think anything will make a difference—­”