“You are an unjust and cruel old man,” stormed Lucille, stamping her foot at the hitherto dread Grumper. “He is ill, I tell you! You’ll be ill yourself someday. He had a fit. He’ll be all right in a minute. Let him go in and lie down. It wasn’t the snake at all. There wasn’t any snake—where he was. He is just ill. He has been working too hard. Let him go in and lie down.”
“Let him go to the Devil,” growled the infuriated General, and turned to such few of the guests as had not displayed sufficient good sense and good taste to go elsewhere and resume their interrupted games, tea, or scandal, to remark:—
“I really apologize most sincerely and earnestly for this ridiculous scene. The boy should be in petticoats, apparently. I hope he won’t encounter a mouse or a beetle to-night. Let’s all—er—come and have a drink.”
Lucille led her shaking and incoherent lover indoors and established him on a sofa, had a fire lit for him as he appeared to be deathly cold, and sat holding his clammy hand until the arrival of Dr. Jones.
As well as his chattering teeth and white frozen lips would allow, he begged for forgiveness, for understanding. “He wasn’t really wholly a coward in essentials.” …
The girl kissed the contorted face and white lips passionately. Dr. Jones prescribed bed and “complete mental and bodily rest”. He said he would “send something,” and in a cloud of wise words disguised the fact that he did not in the least know what to do. It was not in his experience that a healthy young Hercules, sound as a bell, without spot or blemish, should behave like an anaemic, neurotic girl….
Dam passed the night in the unnameable, ghastly hell of agony that he knew so well and that he wondered to survive.
In the morning he received a note from Sir Gerald Seymour Stukeley. It was brief and clear:—“Sandhurst is scarcely the place for a squealing coward, still less the Army. Nor is there room for one at Monksmead. I shall not have the pleasure of seeing you before you catch the 11.15 train; I might say things better left unsaid. I thank God you do not bear our name though you have some of our blood. This will be the one grain of comfort when I think that the whole County is gibing and jeering. No—your name is no more Seymour Stukeley than is your nature. If you will favour my Solicitors with your address, they will furnish you with an account of your patrimony and such balance thereof as may remain—if any. But I believe you came to England worth about fifty pounds—which you have probably spent as pocket-money. I beg of you to communicate with me or my household in no way whatsoever.