The Doctor dropped his cigarette on the plate before him and grasped the edges of the table. His eyes were riveted upon that ghastly spectacle of transmutation.Keeling had intended to pass an hour among his books to wash off the scum, so to speak, of this atrocious conversation, but when he got to his library, and had taken down his new edition of Omar Khayyam, which Charles Propert had induced him to buy, he found it could give him very little emotion. He was aware of the exquisite type, of the strange sensuous wood-cuts that somehow{289} affected him like a subtle odour, of the beautiful binding, and not least of the text itself, but all these perfections were no more than presented to him; they did not penetrate. He could not rid himself of the scum; the odiousness of his wifes approbation would not be washed off. And what made it cling was the fact that she had divined him correctly, had rejoiced at his serving the Club out. It was just that which Norah deprecated, and he felt that Lord Inverbrooms complete silence on the point, his forbearance to hint ever so faintly that perhaps Keeling would reconsider his action, expressed disapprobation as eloquently as Norahs phrase, which he had finished for her, had done. It was a caddish act, that was what they both thought about it, and Alice, when she had finished her nonsense about Mr Silverdales rubber of bridge, had a similar protest in her mind. He did not rate poor Alices mind at any high figure; it was but the fact that she was allied to the other two, and opposed to her mother, that added a little weight to her opinion.Well, go on; but take care, he said.The driver of the ambulance did not know why he had been ordered to report here, but when the Widow Roy came to the door she brought explanation enough. A courier had come to her and gone again, and the chaplain and the surgeon and every one else of any "army sort" except us two had "put out," and she was in a sad flurry. "The Lieutenant," she said, "writes in this-yeh note that this-yeh place won't be safe f'om the Yankees much longer'n to-day, and fo' us to send the wounded lady in the avalanch. Which she says, her own self, it'd go rough with her to fall into they hands again. My married daughter she's a-goin' with her, and the'd ought to be a Mr. Sm'--oh, my Lawdy! you ain't reg-lahly in the ahmy, air you?""Yaas; well, that's all right, too, suh; I uz on'y a-givin' you a frien'ly aynsweh. I hope you like it.""No, not as between sooner and later; and yet, in another way, possibly, yes." Without either of us stirring from the pillow I tried to explain. I pointed out that trait in Charlotte which I called an impulse suddenly to surrender the key of her situation, the vital point in her fortunes and fate.