XVIII

I shrink morbidly from visiting strange houses. I shrink from the
unknown discomforts and trivial humiliations they may hold for me. I
hate, for instance, not to know what kind of a chair may be provided
for me to sit on. I hate to be carried up many stairs even by my
steel-crane of a Marigold. Just try doing without your legs for a
couple of days, and you will see what I mean. Of course I despise
myself for such nervous apprehensions, and do not allow them to
influence my actions--just as one, under heavy fire, does not satisfy
one's simple yearning to run away. I would have given a year's income
to be able to refuse Boyce's request with a clear conscience; but I
could not. I shrank all the more because my visit in the autumn to
Reggie Dacre had shaken me more than I cared to confess. It had been
the only occasion for years when I had entered a London building other
than my club. To the club, where I was as much at home as in my own
house, all those in town with whom I now and then had to transact
business were good enough to come. This penetration of strange
hospitals was an agitating adventure. Apart, however, from the mere
physical nervousness against which, as I say, I fought, there was
another element in my feelings with regard to Boyce's summons. If I
talk about the Iron Hand of Fate you may think I am using a cliche of
melodrama. Perhaps I am. But it expresses what I mean. Something
unregenerate in me, some lingering atavistic savage instinct towards
freedom, rebelled against this same Iron Hand of Fate that, first
clapping me on the shoulder long ago in Cape Town, was now dragging me,
against my will, into ever thickening entanglement with the dark and
crooked destiny of Leonard Boyce.

I tell you all this because I don't want to pose as a kind of apodal
angel of mercy.

I was also deadly anxious as to the nature of the communication Boyce
would make to me, before his mother should be informed of his arrival
in London. In spite of his frank confession, there was still such a
cloud of mystery over the man's soul as to render any revelation
possible. Had his hurt declared itself to be a mortal one? Had he
summoned me to unburden his conscience while yet there was time? Was it
going to be a repetition, with a difference, of my last interview with
Reggie Dacre? I worried myself with unnecessary conjecture.

After a miserable drive through February rain and slush, I reached my
destination in Belton Squ