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I hear you have been wandering from the true fold. Mr Bethany leaned forward with what might be described as a very large smile in a very small compass. 'And that, of course, entailed instant retribution. He broke off solemnly. 'I know Widderstone churchyard well; a most verdant and beautiful spot. The late rector, a Mr Strickland, was a very old friend of mine.
I detest meek talk gods or men. Surely in the first and last resort all we are is ourselves. Something has happened; you are jangled, shaken. But to us, believe me, you are simply one of fewer friends-and I think, after struggling up Widderstone Lane hand in hand with you in the dark, I have a right to say "friends" than I could count on one hand. What are we all if we only realized it?
What I want to know now is leave me out; don't think, or care, or regard my living-on one shadow of an iota all I ask is, What am I to do for you? He turned away and stood staring down at the cinders in the fireless grate. 'I answer that mad wicked outburst with one plain question, said a low, trembling voice; 'did you or did you not go to Widderstone yesterday? 'I did go.
It was a brighter, younger, hairier, but unmistakably the same dull indolent Lawford who had ventured into Widderstone churchyard that afternoon. The cheek was a little plumper, the eyes not quite so full-lidded, the hair a little more precisely parted, the upper lip graced with a small blonde moustache.
None the less green Widderstone kept calling him, much as a bell in the imagination tolls on and on, the echo of reality. If the worst should come to the worst, why there is pasture in the solitary by-ways for the beast that strays.
But if you would kindly inform me what precise formula you followed at Widderstone last night, I would tell you why I think the explanation, or rather your first account of the matter, is not an explanation of the facts. Lawford shot a rather doglike glance over his toast. 'Danton? he said. 'Candidly, Arthur, Mr Danton doubts the whole story.
And in spite of a peculiar melancholy that had welled up into his mind during these last few days, he had certainly smiled with a faint sense of the irony of things on lifting his eyes in an unusually depressed moodiness to find himself looking down on the shadows and peace of Widderstone.
Obviously, and apart altogether from his promise to Sheila, the best possible thing he could do would be to walk quietly over to Widderstone to-morrow and like a child that has lost a penny, just make the attempt to reverse the process: look at the graves, read the inscriptions on the weather-beaten stones, compose himself once more to sleep on the little seat.
You will understand my being... O Sheila, what am I to do? His wife sat perfectly still, watching him with unflinching attention. 'You gave me to understand "a nervous fit"; where? Lawford took a deep breath, and quietly faced her again. 'In the old churchyard, Widderstone; I was looking at at the gravestones. 'A fit; in the old churchyard, Widderstone you were "looking at the gravestones"?
'And how, pray, do you know, he began again more firmly, 'even if there is a Sabathier buried at Widderstone, how do you know it is this Sabathier? It's not, I think, he added boldly, 'a very uncommon name; with two b's at any rate. Whereabouts is the grave? 'Quite down at the bottom, under the trees. And the little seat I told you of is there, too, where I fell asleep.
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