ONE OF THE BRIGHT ONES
I. [In a Field]
II. [In a Parlour]
III. [Trial of Mr. Wriford]
IV. [Martyrdom of Master Cupper]
V. [Essie's Idea of It]
VI. [The Vacant Corner]
VII. [Essie]
VIII. [Our Essie]
IX. [Not to Deceive Her]
X. [The Dream]
XI. [The Business]
XII. [The Seeing]
XIII. [Prayer of Mr. Wriford]
XIV. [Pilgrimage]
THE CLEAN HEART
BOOK ONE
ONE OF THE LUCKY ONES
CHAPTER I
MR. WRIFORD
I
Her hands were firm and cool, and his were trembling, trembling; but her eyes were laughing, laughing, and his own eyes burned.
Mr. Wriford had caught at her hands. For a brief moment, as one in great agony almost swoons in ecstasy of relief at sudden cessation of the pain, he had felt his brain swing, then float, in most exquisite calm at the peace, at the strength their firm, cool touch communicated to him. Then Mr. Wriford saw the laughing lightness in her eyes, and felt his own—whose dull, aching burn had for that instant been slaked—burn, burn anew; and felt beat up his brain that dreadful rush of blood that often in these days terrified him; and felt that lift and surge through all his pulses that sometimes reeled him on his feet; and knew that baffling lapse of thought which always followed, as though the surge were in fact a tide of affairs that flung him high and dry and left him out of action to pick his way back—to grope back to the thread of purpose, to the train of thought, that had been snapped—if he could!
Mr. Wriford knew that the day was coming when he could not. Every time when, in the midst of ideas, of speech, of action, the surge swept him adrift and stranded him vacant and bewildered, the effort to get back was appreciably harder—the interval appreciably of greater length. The thing to do was to hang on—hang on like death while the tide surged up your brain. That sometimes left you with a recollection—a clue—that helped you back more quickly.