My arms gradually became stiff; they ached; but I could not drop them—now. 🔊 I had a suspicion, I had a certainty. 🔊 Well, what, then? What else had I come for? 🔊 Yet I held tight that barrier of newspaper. 🔊 Only the sound of Berthe's brisk footstep from the kitchen enabled me, forced me, to drop it, and to utter:

"What shall we have to eat, Soames?" 🔊

"Il est souffrant, ce pauvre Monsieur Soames?" asked Berthe. 🔊

"He's only—tired." 🔊 I asked her to get some wine—Burgundy—and whatever food might be ready. 🔊 Soames sat crouched forward against the table exactly as when last I had seen him. 🔊 It was as though he had never moved—he who had moved so unimaginably far. 🔊 Once or twice in the afternoon it had for an instant occurred to me that perhaps his journey was not to be fruitless, that perhaps we had all been wrong in our estimate of the works of Enoch Soames. 🔊 That we had been horribly right was horribly clear from the look of him. 🔊 But, "Don't be discouraged," I falteringly said. 🔊 "Perhaps it's only that you—didn't leave enough time. 🔊 Two, three centuries hence, perhaps—" 🔊

"Yes," his voice came; "I've thought of that." 🔊

"And now—now for the more immediate future! 🔊 Where are you going to hide? 🔊 How would it be if you caught the Paris express from Charing Cross? 🔊 Almost an hour to spare. 🔊 Don't go on to Paris. 🔊 Stop at Calais. Live in Calais. 🔊 He'd never think of looking for you in Calais." 🔊