'Sheila Raleigh-' he held out his hand, smiling. 'How's Tom?'
'Didn't you hear? He was killed.' He looked blank, hand outstretched and untaken. She bit her lip. 'In Greece. He was one of the last.'
'Sheila, what can I say-'
'Don't say anything, Graham. Please don't.'
'But Sheila, I'm so dreadfully sorry. It's a terrible shock. I mean, Tom was my houseman, my registrar, my partner. We worked together for ten years. He was such a wonderful chap.'
'Then why didn't you keep him?' she demanded savagely. 'If you'd wanted, he'd be safe with you now in the country. But you didn't. You rejected him. Because you really hated him. Because you were jealous of him. Because he wasn't of use to you any more. That's the truth, isn't it? Now you know exactly what you've done.'
For a moment Graham could say nothing. 'How can you accuse me of that?' he managed to ask weakly. 'It isn't right, you know. It just isn't true at all. Honestly, I'm heartbroken at the news. Surely there's something I can do to help? For the children? Isn't there anything? If there's some sort of assistance I can give, financial assistance-'
'I wouldn't take a penny from a murderer.'
She shrugged her shoulders, turned, and abruptly walked off. Graham watched her disappear, picking her way among the firehoses.
The wedding was to Graham as joyless as a funeral. He found it impossible to be even faintly amiable afterwards. He pleaded work, and drove straight back to Smithers Botham. He knew that everything Sheila said was perfectly correct. To come face to face with his old self was harrowing. Things had so changed. Or had they? His egotism and jealousy, which had cost poor Tom his partnership and then his life, he supposed must still be in his system somewhere. Perhaps he was merely redirecting them to temporarily more acceptable ends, like some thug given a rifle and praised for killing Germans? Was it too much to hope he really was becoming a better sort of man? How could he tell? There was no one near enough to ask.
At Smithers Botham he made for his office. He had to find some work, anything to occupy himself, to stop his self-inflicted mental wounds. He paused in the doorway, surprised to find Sister Mills at his desk. Then he remembered he'd asked her to collect case reports of something-what was it? Maxillary fractures. He was about to ask her to go when she noticed his face and jumped up, exclaiming, 'What's the matter? Was it something in the blitz?'
He shut the door behind him.
'I killed a man,' he said wearily. 'Unwittingly and indirectly, but I killed him. Tom Raleigh-did I ever mention him? He was my partner. We had a row. He should have been working with me out here on the unit. I wouldn't take him. So instead, he was killed in Greece.'
He sat in a chair by the desk.
'I'm so sorry,' said Sister Mills quietly. 'It must have been terrible news.'
'Particularly as I got it from his widow. Who knew exactly what the facts were.' He stretched out his legs. 'She told me what she thought of me. She was perfectly right. To her, I couldn't be anything but the vilest and wickedest creature in the world.'
'She'd be feeling emotional. She let her tongue run away with her.'
'I'd like to think so. But my whole life before the war doesn't stand much examination.'
'Doesn't it? You brought a lot of happiness to people.'
'At a price.'
'Well, why not?' she asked simply. 'What is the price of happiness?'
'Anyway, I didn't give a damn about the happiness. Only the guineas.'
'That's quite impossible to believe. Not after all I've seen here.'
He sat staring in front of him. Then he noticed she was crying.
'I must apologize.' He got up abruptly. 'All these troubles I've brought back are upsetting you. I shouldn't have mentioned them. I've no right asking you to share them.'
'I'm crying for you,' she told him. 'You're so much the nicest person in the world, and you fight so terribly hard against it.'
Then he had her in his arms, and she was kissing him with a passion even he found exciting.
Meanwhile, Mrs Sedgewick-Smith was holding another of her regular Monday afternoon tea-parties. She had told Stephanie severely that she mustn't keep crossing her legs like that. After all, she was really getting quite a big girl.
On Sunday mornings Graham would lie in bed, reading the papers, _Picture Post,_ the _Strand Magazine,_ a novel, anything unconnected with the annex. It was only the bad doctor, he reflected, who killed himself to cure his patients.
