He walked up and down the dreary room, on which the dark of evening had fallen. At last he paused by his writing-table, and then a sudden thought flashing on him, he smote his temples with his hands.
“I must send you away, Wallie. It's necessary. I have my column to write for The Herald. It must be in by eleven. I had forgotten all about it. They won't want my name,--it would damn the paper,--but I suppose they 're counting on the column, and I don't want to leave them in the lurch.”
“They don't want your column this week, at any rate,” said Herold. “Oh, don't begin to bellow. I went to see Ferguson yesterday. He's as kind as can be, and of course wants you to go on as usual. But no one except a raving idiot would expect stuff from you to-day. And as for your silly old column, I've written it myself. I suggested it to Ferguson, and he jumped at it.”
“You wrote my column?” said Risca, in a softened voice.
“Of course I did, and a devilish good column, too. Do you think I can only paint my face and grin through a horse-collar?”
“That's precisely why I did,” said Herold.
Risca sat down, calmer in mood, and lit a pipe. Herold, the sensitive, accepted this action as an implication of thanks. Risca puffed his tobacco for a few moments in silence, apparently absorbed in enjoyment of the fragrant subtleties of the mixture of honeydew and birdseye and latakia and the suspicion of soolook that gives mystery to a blend. At last he spoke.
“I shall arrange to keep on that house in Smith Street, and put in a caretaker, so that she shall have a home when she comes out. What will happen then, God Almighty knows. Perhaps she will have changed. We need n't discuss it. But, at any rate, while I 'm away, I want you to see to it for me. It's a ghastly task, but some one must undertake it. Will you?”
“Of course,” said Herold. “But what do you mean by being 'away'?”
Herold leaped from his chair and threw his cigarette into the fire. It was only John Risca who, without giving warning, would lower his head and charge at life in that fashion.
“It's my only chance of sanity,” said Risca. “Here I am a dead man. The flames are too much for me. Perhaps in another country, where I 'm not known, some kind of a phoenix called John Smith or Robinson may rise out of the ashes. Here it can't. Here the ashes would leave a stench that would asphyxiate any bird, however fabulous. It's my one chance--to begin again.”