its clear uncanny gleam on bare
bones with grinning spaces between, the disguising flesh was gone....

In the dining-room at Stanhope Gate old Jolyon was sitting alone when
his son came in. He looked very wan in his great armchair. And his eyes
travelling round the walls with their pictures of still life, and the
masterpiece 'Dutch fishing-boats at Sunset' seemed as though passing
their gaze over his life with its hopes, its gains, its achievements.

"Ah! Jo!" he said, "is that you? I've told poor little June. But that's
not all of it. Are you going to Soames'? She's brought it on herself,
I suppose; but somehow I can't bear to think of her, shut up there--and
all alone." And holding up his thin, veined hand, he clenched it.

CHAPTER IX--IRENE'S RETURN

After leaving James and old Jolyon in the mortuary of the hospital,
Soames hurried aimlessly along the streets.

The tragic event of Bosinney's death altered the complexion of
everything. There was no longer the same feeling that to lose a minute
would be fatal, nor would he now risk communicating the fact of his
wife's flight to anyone till the inquest was over.

That morning he had risen early, before the postman came, had taken the
first-post letters from the box himself, and, though there had been
none from Irene, he had made an opportunity of telling Bilson that
her mistress was at the sea; he would probably, he said, be going down
himself from Saturday to Monday. This had given him time to breathe,
time to leave no stone unturned to find her.

But now, cut off from taking steps by Bosinney's death--that strange
death, to think of which was like putting a hot iron to his heart, like
lifting a great weight from it--he did not know how to pass his day; and
he wandered here and there through the streets, looking at every face he
met, devoured by a hundred anxieties.

And as he wandered, he thought of him who had finished his wandering,
his prowling, and would never haunt his house again.

Already in the afternoon he passed posters announcing the identity of
the dead man, and bought the papers to see what they said. He would stop
their mouths if he could, and he went into the City, and was closeted
with Boulter for a long time.

On his way home, passing the steps of Jobson's about half past four, he
met George Forsyte, who held out an evening paper to Soames, saying:

"Here! Have you seen this about the poor Buccaneer?"

Soames answered stonily: "Yes.