After leaving James and old Jolyon in the mortuary of the hospital,
Soames hurried aimlessly along the streets.
The tragic event of Bosinney's death altered the complexion of
everything. There was no longer the same feeling that to lose a minute
would be fatal, nor would he now risk communicating the fact of his
wife's flight to anyone till the inquest was over.
That morning he had risen early, before the postman came, had taken the
first-post letters from the box himself, and, though there had been
none from Irene, he had made an opportunity of telling Bilson that
her mistress was at the sea; he would probably, he said, be going down
himself from Saturday to Monday. This had given him time to breathe,
time to leave no stone unturned to find her.
But now, cut off from taking steps by Bosinney's death--that strange
death, to think of which was like putting a hot iron to his heart, like
lifting a great weight from it--he did not know how to pass his day; and
he wandered here and there through the streets, looking at every face he
met, devoured by a hundred anxieties.
And as he wandered, he thought of him who had finished his wandering,
his prowling, and would never haunt his house again.
Already in the afternoon he passed posters announcing the identity of
the dead man, and bought the papers to see what they said. He would stop
their mouths if he could, and he went into the City, and was closeted
with Boulter for a long time.
On his way home, passing the steps of Jobson's about half past four, he
met George Forsyte, who held out an evening paper to Soames, saying:
"Here! Have you seen this about the poor Buccaneer?"
Soames answered stonily: "Yes."
George stared at him. He had never liked Soames; he now held him
responsible for Bosinney's death. Soames had done for him--done for him
by that act of property that had sent the Buccaneer to run amok that
fatal afternoon.
'The poor fellow,' he was thinking, 'was so cracked with jealousy, so
cracked for his vengeance, that he heard nothing of the omnibus in that
infernal fog.'
Soames had done for him! And this judgment was in George's eyes.
"They talk of suicide here," he said at last. "That cat won't jump."
Soames shook his head. "An accident," he muttered.
Clenching his fist on the paper, George crammed it into his pocket. He
could not resist a parting shot.
"H'mm! All flourishing at home? Any little Soameses yet?"
With a face as white as the steps of Jobson's, and a lip raised as if
snarling, Soames brushed past him and was gone....