She hung up and sat down on the table in her nightgown. Finally she said, "He didn’t go back on Saturday night, Eric".
"Why not?"
"I guess because of me", she answered after a pause.
"What do you mean?"
"Just what I said. Because of me".
Erica sat down on the edge of the cupboard facing her and asked, "Just how much did you tell him?"
"Everything".
She added after another pause, "I told him everything for the last six years".
"Miriam, you fool", said Erica softly, "you damn fool".
She said desperately, "Don’t you see, Eric, I had to! I had to give it to him straight. There wasn’t any other way of doing it. Where do you suppose he is?"
"Down in some joint on St. Antoine Street, though if he is, I don’t know why the M.P.s haven’t picked him up by this time".
"John?" asked Miriam, horrified.
"Yes, John", repeated Erica impatiently.
"But people don’t do that sort of thing, Eric!"
"People like John do. He probably started drinking and then eventually passed out, and when he came to, the only thing he could think of was you, so he got drunk all over again. Where do you suppose he is?"
"I don’t know", said Miriam frantically.
"You’d better go back to bed or you’ll catch cold".
"Come and talk to me, Eric. Please".
They went back upstairs and Erica undressed, and with a satin negligee which Marc had given her thrown over her shoulders, she went into Miriam’s room and sat down beside her on the bed. "What did Captain Henderson say?"
"Just that he hadn’t turned up when he was supposed to, on Saturday night. He asked me if I knew whether John had had some kind of shock. What will they do to him, Eric?"
"I don’t know". She remembered suddenly that Miriam had been looking worse since Saturday, instead of better, and she asked, "Why didn’t you tell me, Mimi?"
"I couldn’t. I didn’t realize how much he meant to me until I saw him walk out for good. I knew he was going to, of course. I knew it all along".
"What did you tell him exactly?"
"I didn’t make it any worse than it was-rather difficult anyhow", she added, smiling faintly in spite of the tears in her eyes. "I told him about Peter; I told him that the reason he himself had never had a chance was because he reminded me of Peter…".
"That was a nice touch", commented Erica. "Did you tell him why he reminded you of Peter?" Miriam nodded and Erica said, "A still nicer touch. You couldn’t have done much better than that if you’d tried".
She said quietly, "I did try. I thought I might just as well let him know the whole truth while I was at it".
"Well, go on", asked Erica, after waiting for a while.
"Then he got up and walked out".
"Out of where?"
"Here-downstairs, in the drawing-room".
She sat up with a jerk a moment later, saying wildly, "We’ve got to go and look for him, Eric! We can’t just sit here…".
"Where do you suggest we start looking?" inquired Erica without moving.
"He must be somewhere-he might even be in his flat and not answering the door or the phone because he was still…"
"They’ll have looked in his flat long ago".
Again Miriam asked despairingly, "What will they do to him?"
"I don’t know", said Erica hopelessly.
Chapter IX
On Friday night when Erica had already started to pack, in order to catch the early train to Ottawa next day, Marc telephoned her long distance to tell her that his forty-eight hour leave had been canceled, and that a week from the following Monday, on September 14th, he was to start his embarkation leave.
Erica had taken the call in her mother’s room. She was alone on the second floor; the rest of the family were downstairs having coffee in the drawing-room, and in the intervals when neither Marc nor she was talking, she could hear the clock ticking in her father’s study. She was sitting on the edge of her mother’s bed, looking up unseeingly at the water color of some calla lilies on the opposite wall. Everything was the same as it had been the first time he had called her, the night Miriam had come home; she was even wearing the same gray flannel suit. But now it was September, instead of early in July; the summer was over, and Marc was to start his embarkation leave a week from the following Monday.
"How long have you got, Marc?"
"We’re due in Halifax on the twenty-fourth".
"What day is the twenty-fourth?"
"Thursday. The Halifax train doesn’t leave till seven-thirty at night so I’ll have most of Wednesday in Montreal. I can report any time up till midnight".
"When are you going to Algoma?"
"If I leave on Friday I’ll be there Saturday night, and that will give me three days at home. Can you be at the hotel on Monday night, Eric?"
"Yes, don’t worry, I’ll be there".
"That means we’ll have three days together too-a bit more as a matter of fact, and then I’ll be seeing you again on Wednesday on my way through". He paused and then asked, "What is the Post going to say, Eric? Do you think they’ll mind?"
She had no idea what the Post would say and she did not care whether they minded or not, but before she could answer, her mother called her from downstairs.
"Just a minute, Mother, I’m telephoning".
"Your coffee’s getting cold".
"I’ll be right down".
"Are you still there?" asked Marc.
"Yes, darling".
"There won’t be any hitches, will there, Eric?" he asked anxiously.
"No, darling. I told you, you’re not to worry". Monday, September 14th was ten days and two week-ends off, and she asked, "Isn’t there any chance of-of anything-in the meantime, Marc?"
"It doesn’t look like it".
There was another flat silence. He said finally, "Well, I guess that’s about all, Eric".
"I guess so", said Erica, after making sure of her voice. She did not want to start crying again.
"Somebody else wants the phone, darling. I’d better hang up".
Erica went downstairs, took her cup of coffee from the tray and carried it over to the window-seat. Her mother and father were sitting at either end of the sofa facing the empty fireplace, with Miriam curled up in a near-by chair. Her father was reading the evening paper.
One of them asked, "What’s the matter, Eric?"
"Nothing", said Erica.
There was a blue haze over the city and the lights were already lit in some of the buildings. Off to the right, just above where the Adirondacks ought to be, Erica thought, a new moon was rising and one star was faintly visible. Sometimes you could see the Adirondacks when the atmosphere was very clear.
Miriam came over and sat down beside her. She had been looking a little better since Captain Henderson had reported that John had turned up at Headquarters, somewhat the worse for wear, on Tuesday morning. He told Miriam that there was nothing to be alarmed about; John’s record was too good for anything very drastic to happen to him just because he had gone "temporarily nuts". As a matter of fact, his C.O. had covered up for him, by simply giving him three days’ leave, beginning the previous Saturday. "That’s the reason we were raising heaven and earth to find him before it was too late and the C.O. would have to think up something else".