"I'm—I'm precious hard hit, old man."
The other nodded and, as Willie sank back in his chair, stole quietly out of the room, shutting the door close behind him.
Willie Ruston drew his chair nearer the fire, and spread out his hands to the blaze. And as the heat warmed his frame, the stupor of his mind passed, and he saw some of what was true—a glimpse of his naked self thrown up against the light of the love that others found for him. And he turned away his eyes, for it seemed to him that he could not look long and endure to live. And he groaned that he had won love and made for himself so mighty an accuser of debts that it lay not in him to pay. For even then, while he cursed himself, and cursed the nature that would not be changed in him; even while the words of his love were in his ears, and her presence near with him; even while life seemed naught for the emptiness her going made, and himself nothing but longing for her; even then, behind regret, behind remorse, behind agony, behind self-contempt and self-disgust, lay hidden, and deeper hidden as he thrust it down, the knowledge that he was glad—glad that his life was his own again, to lead and make and shape; wherein to take and hold, to play and win, to fasten on what was his, and to beat down his enemies before his face. That no man could rob him of, and the woman who could would not. So, as Maggie Dennison had said, in the passing of an hour he was glad; and in the passing of a week he had learnt to look in the face of the gladness which he had and loathed.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE RETURN OF A FRIEND.
About a week later, Tom Loring sat at work in his rooms. The table was strewn with books of blue and of less alarming colours. Tom was smoking a short pipe, and when he paused for a fresh idea, the smoke welled out of his mouth, aye, and out of his nose, thick and fast. For a while he wrote busily; then a dash of his pen proclaimed a finished task, and he lay back in the luxury of accomplishment. Presently he pushed back his chair, knocked out his pipe, refilled it, and stretched himself on the sofa. After the day's work came the day's dream; and the day's dream dwelt on the coming of the evening hour, when Tom was to take tea with Adela Ferrars at half-past five. When he had an appointment like that, it coloured his whole day, and made his hard labour pass lightly. Also it helped him to forget what there was in his own life and his friends' to trouble him; and he nursed with quiet patience a love that did not expect, that hardly hoped for, any issue. As he had been content to be Harry Dennison's secretary, so he seemed satisfied to be an undeclared lover; finding enough for his modesty in what most men would have felt only a spur to urge them to press further.
He was roused by a step on the stair. A moment later, Harry Dennison burst into the room. Tom had seen him a few days before, uneasy, troubled, apologetic, talking of Maggie's strange indisposition—she was terribly out of sorts, he had said, and appeared to find all company and all talk irksome. He had spoken with a meek compassion that exasperated Tom—an unconsciousness of any hardship laid on him. Tom sat up, glad to console him for an hour; glad, perhaps, of any company that would trick an hour into the past. But to-day Harry's step was light; there was a smile on his lips, a gleam of hope in his eyes; he rushed to Tom, seized his hand, and, before he sat down or took off his hat, blurted out,
"Tom, old boy, she wants you to come back."