Ernie, thinking the man referred to the probabilities that he would be called back to the Army, and proud of his momentary fortuitous importance, shouted back with an air of appropriate nonchalance,
"That's all right, Guy. I wouldn't mind a spell with the old regiment again—that I wouldn't."
At the foot of Borough Lane he met Alf bustling along. His brother did not pause, but gave Ernie a searching look as he passed and said, "Watch it, Ern!"
Ern experienced a strange qualm as he approached his home. The door was open; nobody was about; there was not a sound in the house—neither the accustomed chirp of the children, nor the voice and movements of their mother.
The nightmare terrors that are wont to seize the sensitive at such times, especially if their conscience is haunted, laid hold of him. The emptiness, the silence appalled him. Death, so it seemed to his imaginative mind, reigned where the life and warmth and pleasant human busyness the woman and her children create had formerly been. Ever since that dark moment when he had let loose those foul and treacherous words, he had been uneasy in his mind; and yet, though usually the humblest of men, some stubborn imp of pride had possessed him and refused to allow him to express the contrition he genuinely felt. Perhaps the very magnitude of his offence had prevented him from making just amends.
Ruth on her side had said nothing; but she had felt profoundly the wound he had inflicted on her heart. So much her silence and unusual reserve had told him. Had he gone too far? Had her resentment been deeper than he had divined? Had he by his stupid brutality in a moment of animal panic and animal pain snapped the light chain that bound him to this woman he loved so dearly and knew so little? And none was more conscious than he how fragile was that chain. Ruth had never been immersed in love for him: she had never pretended to be. He knew that. She had been an affectionate and most loyal friend; and that was all.
On the threshold of his home he paused and stared down with the frightened snort of a horse suddenly aware of an abyss gaping at his feet.
For the first time in his married life the instant sense of his insecurity, always present in his subconsciousness, leapt into the light of day.
He gathered himself and marched upstairs as a man marches up the steps of the scaffold to pay the merited punishment for his crimes.
Then he heard a little noise. The door of the back room where the children, all but the baby, slept, was open. He peeped in. Susie was there, and Jenny with her. Hope returned to him. They were sitting up in bed still in outdoor clothes. Then he noticed that the baby's cot which stood of wont in the front room beside the big bed was here too. His sudden relief changed to anguish. He saw it all: his children, the three of them, packed away together like fledgelings in a nest—for him to mother; and the mother-bird herself and her child flown!