Page:The Painted Veil - Maugham - 1925.djvu/236

 “If it is I don’t know it,” he answered warily.

“Why?”

“Nothing. Itcrossed my mind. It had a familiar ring.”

There was another silence.

“When you were alone with your husband,” said Waddington presently, “I had a talk with the regimental surgeon. I thought we ought to have some details.”

“Well?”

“He was in a very hysterical state. I couldn’t really quite understand what he meant. So far as I can make out your husband got infected during the course of experiments he was making.”

“He was always experimenting. He wasn’t really a doctor, he was a bacteriologist; that is why he was so anxious to come here.”

“But I can’t quite make out from the surgeon’s statements whether he was infected accidentally or whether he was actually experimenting on himself.”

Kitty grew very pale. The suggestion made her shudder. Waddington took her hand.

“Forgive me for talking about this again,” he said gently, “but I thought it might comfort you—I know how frightfully difficult it is on these occasions to say anything that is of the least use—I thought it might mean something to you that Walter died a martyr to science and to his duty.”

Kitty shrugged her shoulders with a suspicion of impatience.

“Walter died of a broken heart,” she said.