He held her to him; kissed the soft gold hair.
On a movement in the next room his Mary wriggled free. “Tell me.”
“By Gad, it's been awful! Did you hear me in that room?”
She nodded, laughing at him. He kissed the smiles.
“Oh, do be careful! Let go, George; let go. I couldn't hear what you said. But you were hours—hours.”
“Years,” said George. “Years. Aeons of time. I have aged considerably. I thought it would never end. It was appalling.”
She clasped her pretty hands. “But tell me, George. Do tell me. I don't understand anything. What has happened?”
“Give me time,” George told her. “I am not the same George. The light-hearted George of yore is dead under Miss Ram's chair. I am old and seamed with care.”
“George, do, do tell me! Don't fool.”
“I'm not fooling. I can't fool. You don't realise what I have been through. You have no heart. I can't fool. When I was a child I thought as a child; I did childish things. But now that I have been through Miss Ram's hands my bright boyhood is sapped. I am old and stricken in years.”