But Anne did not answer. She was afraid she might cry, and after a brief pause Roger went back to the thing that had puzzled him.
"I saw Tom, the day after he came back, sitting all bowed over his desk. It was late in the evening and the others had gone. He was expecting me, but he never moved when I came in and I thought he was ill. I went over to him and he looked up. I never saw a man so torn. His face was ash-gray and those lines he always has down the sides of his mouth were deep like scars. And his eyes, they were like a hurt dog's, so dumb and crushed and puzzled. He didn't even try to cheer up, just said: 'I won't be doing any work to-night; I don't feel well.' I said something about getting him a drink, but he shook his head and I went. I was rather afraid—he was going to cry."
"It wouldn't have hurt him if he had," Anne said in a hard whisper. "He's killed Merle's soul, and if she goes to the dogs it will be his fault."
"Killed Merle's soul? She never had one, at least not much of a one."
"No. There are no individual souls, I suppose; just one great, big world soul—though what it's made of if it isn't individual souls, I don't know."
Roger moved impatiently, but when he spoke it was with weary acceptance:
"You never liked Tom. You never understood him, the real man, or tried to."
"No? I understand what he claims to be, but not what he is."
"What is he?"
"A monomaniac." The word slipped from Anne and frightened her.