Page:HG Wells--secret places of the heart.djvu/297

Rh They entered the big bedroom in which the coffined body lay. Dr. Martineau, struck by a sudden memory, glanced nervously at the desk, but someone had made it quite tidy and the portrait of Miss Grammont had disappeared. Miss Leeds walked straight across to the coffin and stood looking down on the waxen inexpressive dignity of the dead. Sir Richmond’s brows and nose had become sharper and more clear-cut than they had ever been in life and his lips had set into a faint inane smile. She stood quite still for a long time. At length she sighed deeply.

She spoke, a little as though she thought aloud, a little as though she talked at that silent presence in the coffin. “I think he loved,” she said. “Sometimes I think he loved me. But it is hard to tell. He was kind. He could be intensely kind and yet he didn’t seem to care for you. He could be intensely selfish and yet he certainly did not care for himself.... Anyhow, I loved him.... There is nothing left in me now to love anyone else—for ever....”

She put her hands behind her back and looked at the dead man with her head a little on one side. “Too kind,” she said very softly.

“There was a sort of dishonesty in his kindness. He would not let you have the bitter truth. He would not say he did not love you....

“He was too kind to life ever to call it the foolish thing it is. He took it seriously because it