They said good-bye at the gate, and Lawford
started once more for home. He walked slowly, conscious of an almost
intolerable weariness, as if his strength had suddenly been wrested
away from him. And at some distance beyond the top of the hill he sat
down on the bank beside a nettled ditch, and with his book pressed down
upon the wayside grass struck a match, and holding it low in the
scented, windless air turned slowly the cockled leaf. Few of them were alike except for the dinginess of the print and the
sinister smudge of the portraits. All were sewn roughly together into a
mould-stained, marbled cover. He lit a second match, and as he did so
glanced as if inquiringly over his shoulder. And a score or so of pages
before the end he came at last upon the name he was seeking, and turned
the page. It was a likeness even more striking in its crudeness of ink and line
and paper than the most finished of portraits could have been. It
repelled, and yet it fascinated him. He had not for a moment doubted
Herbert’s calm conviction. And yet as he stooped in the grass, closely
scrutinising the blurred obscure features, he felt the faintest
surprise not so much at the significant resemblance but at his own
composure, his own steady, unflinching confrontation with this sinister
and intangible adversary. The match burned down to his fingers. It
hissed faintly in the grass. He stuffed the book into his pocket, and stared into the pale dial of
his watch. It was a few minutes after eleven. Midnight, then, would
just see him in. He rose stiffly and yawned in sheer exhaustion. Then,
hesitating, he turned his head and looked back towards the hollow. But
a vague foreboding held him back. A sour and vacuous incredulity swept
over him. What was the use of all this struggling and vexation. What
gain in living on? Once dead _his_ sluggish spirit at least would find
its rest. Dust to dust it would indeed be for him. What else, in sober
earnest, had he been all his daily stolid life but half dead, scarce
conscious, without a living thought, or desire, in head or heart? And while he was still gloomily debating within himself he had turned
towards home, and soon was walking in a kind of reverie, even his
extreme tiredness in part forgotten, and only a far-away dogged
recollection in his mind that in spite of shame, in spite of all his
miserable weakness, the words had been uttered once for all, and in all
sincerity, ‘We _did_ win through.’

Yet a desolate and odd air of strangeness seemed to drape his unlighted
house as he stood looking up in a kind of furtive communion with its
windows. It affected him with that discomforting air of extreme and
meaningless novelty that things very familiar sometimes take upon
themselves. In this leaden tiredness no impression could be
trustworthy. His lids shut of themselves as he softly mounted the
steps. It seemed a needlessly wide door that soundlessly admitted him. But however hard he pressed the key his bedroom door remained
stubbornly shut until he found that it was already unlocked and he had
only to turn the handle. A night-light burned in a little basin on the
washstand. The room was hung, as it were, with the stillness of night. And half lying on the bed in her dressing-gown, her head leaning on the
rail at the foot, was Alice, just as sleep had overtaken her. Lawford returned to the door and listened. It seemed he heard a voice
talking downstairs, and yet not talking, for it ran on and on in an
incessant slightly argumentative monotony that had neither break nor
interruption. He closed the door, and stooping laid his hand softly on
Alice’s narrow, still childish hand that lay half-folded on her knee. Her eyes opened instantly and gazed widely into his face. A slow vacant
smile of sleep came and went and her fingers tightened gently over his
as again her lids drooped down over the drowsy blue eyes. ‘At last, at last, dear,’ she said; ‘I have been waiting such a time. But we mustn’t talk much. Mother is waiting up, reading.’

Faintly through the close-shut door came the sound of that distant
expressionless voice monotonously rising and falling. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, dear?’ Alice still sleepily whispered. ‘Would
I have asked a single question? How could I? Oh, if you had only
trusted me!’

‘But the change—the change, Alice! You must have seen that. You spoke
to me, you did think I was only a stranger; and even when you knew, it
was only fear on your face, dearest, and aversion; and you turned to
your mother first. Don’t think, Alice, that I am...God only knows—I’m
not complaining. But truth is best whatever it is. I do feel that. You
mustn’t be afraid of hurting me, my dear.’

Her very hands seemed to quicken in his as now, with sleep quite gone,
the fret of memory returned, and she must reassure both herself and
him. ‘But you see, dear, mother had told me that you—besides, I did
know you at once, really; quite inside, you know, deep down. I know I
was perplexed; I didn’t understand; but that was all. Why, even when
you came up in the dark, and we talked—if you only knew how miserable I
had been—though I knew even then there was something different, still I
was not a bit afraid. Was I? And shouldn’t I have been afraid, horribly
afraid, if _you_ had not been _you?_’ She repressed a little shudder,
and clasped his hand more closely. ‘Don’t let us say anything more
about it, she implored him; ‘we are just together again, you and I;
that is all that matters.’ But her words were like brave soldiers who
have fought their way through an ambuscade but have left all confidence
behind them. Lawford listened; and that was enough just now—that she still, in spite
of doubt, believed in him, and thought and cared for him. He was too
tired to have refused the least kindness. He made no answer, but leant
his head on the cool, slender fingers in gratitude and peace. And, just
as he was, he almost instantly fell asleep. He woke in the darkness to
find himself alone. He groped his way heavily to the door and turned
the handle. But now it was really locked. Energy failed him. ‘I
suppose—Sheila...’ he muttered. CHAPTER FOURTEEN


Sheila, calm, alert, reserved, was sitting at the open window when he
awoke again. His breakfast tray stood on a little table beside the bed. He raised himself on his elbow and looked at his wife. The morning
light shone full on her features as she turned quickly at sound of his
stirring. ‘You have slept late,’ she said, in a low, mellow voice. ‘Have I, Sheila? I suppose I was tired out. It is very kind of you to
have got everything ready like this.’

‘I am afraid, Arthur, I was thinking rather of the maids. I like to
inconvenience them as little as possible; in their usual routine, I
mean. How are you feeling, do you think, this morning?’

‘I—I haven’t seen the glass, Sheila.’

She paused to place a little pencil tick at the foot of the page of her
butcher’s book. ‘And did you—did you try?’

‘Did I try?