Susan flung her arms round his neck. “Oh! George, my pride is all gone; don't go, don't think to go; have pity on us both, and don't go.” And she clung to him—her bonnet fallen off, her hair disheveled—and they sobbed and wept in one another's arms.
Meadows writhed with the jealous anguish this sad sight gave him, and at that moment he could have cursed the whole creation. He tried to fly, but he was rooted to the spot. He leaned sick as death against the palings.
George and Susan cried together, and then they wiped one another's eyes like simple country folk with one pocket-handkerchief; and then they kissed one another in turn, and made each other's tears flow fast again; and again wiped one another's eyes with one handkerchief.
Meadows griped the palings convulsively—hell was in his heart.
“Poor souls, God help them!” said William to himself in his purified heart.
The silence their sorrow caused all around was suddenly invaded by a voice that seemed to come from another world—it was Grandfather Fielding. “The autumn sun is not so warm as she used to be!”
Yes, there was the whole map of humanity on that little spot in the county of Berks. The middle-aged man, a schemer, watching the success of his able scheme, and stunned and wounded by its recoil. And old age, callous to noble pain, all alive to discomfort, yet man to the last—blaming any one but Number One, cackling against heavenly bodies, accusing the sun and the kitchen fire of frigidity—not his own empty veins! And the two poor young things sobbing as if their hearts would break over their first great earthly sorrow.
George was the first to recover himself.
“Shame upon me!” he cried; he drew Susan to his bosom, and pressed a long, burning kiss upon her brow.
And now all felt the wrench was coming. George, with a wild, half-terrified look, signaled William to come to him.