Neither of them had seen him go. He had tiptoed past them like a ghost and out into the summer night. The sky was luminous with the dust of stars. A sleepy wind was blowing.
He jumped into his car and sped away, making such haste that one might have thought he was pursued. He wheeled to the left in the direction that led to the Surrey hills. It was the direction he had taken with Terry on that March morning when she had met him at the station. He was making a discovery: that there is no tragedy more difficult to contemplate with charity than the sight of other people's happiness. Their follies we can tolerate and view even with compassion; but their joys are unendurable. Joy separates men with impassable barriers. It transfigures beggars into Lazaruses lying at rest in Abraham's bosom. We view them from afar off and their contentment increases the burning of our torment. No man has yet discovered how to share his joy. Only a god could say, "My joy I give unto you."
They had not seen him go. That was the neglect that rankled. Even though they had seen him, they would not have cared; they would have done nothing to delay him. They were past all caring. Like tired ships, having weathered many storms, they had furled their sails in the harbor of desire. He had slipped by them like a demon vessel, all canvas spread, out-going on his endless voyage.
From the door, before he left, he had looked back. The room was a-silver with twilight. The garden beyond was still vaguely golden. The pond glimmered darkly like a magic mirror. The murmur of London wove patterns on the silence. From the hall across the silver of the dusk, an intrusive shaft of light pointed like a finger at those two entranced,
who had refound the peace that time had scattered.
Even though Pollock had not returned, he himself could never have married her. There are violations of the austerity of the soul which the urgings of the flesh cannot accomplish. In the vivid flash of reality that had visited him he knew that now. He was angry—bitterly angry. But his anger was not for her; it was for himself. He could be so audaciously prophetic in the affairs of others. He could advise them and well-nigh compel them to conserve themselves for kingdoms of whose coming there was neither the slightest hope nor warning. His penetrating optimism could foresee the daringly incredible, so that it almost seemed in the case of Maisie that his optimism had created out of the incredible a fact. He could work these miracles of restraint for others; himself he could not restrain. His road ran straight as destiny, yet any lazy kingdom of mildness in a woman's eyes was capable of luring him aside. In his abasement he lost all faith in his self-knowledge. Hadn't he always been the victim of an imagination which had tricked mere liking into a resemblance to passion? He strutted, gestured, despaired till he almost persuaded himself that he was the part he was acting. But had he the faintest conception of what real love meant? Hadn't he always acted a part? Yes, even in the case of Terry!
His saner judgment intervened. He hadn't always been like that. Where had the point of departure started? He traced back the weakness till he came to the moment when he had permitted his sense of justice to be over-ruled by a woman. It had
started with Maisie, when he had allowed her to persuade him to hide the truth from Lady Dawn.
He jammed on the brakes, bringing the car to a sudden halt. To go and tell her must be the first step in his redemption. Till that was done the curse of the dead man would follow him. It seemed to him now, as he looked back, that through all the spring and summer the shadow of Lord Dawn had crept behind him. He would go at once. He would go that night. He knew where he could find her. He would set out like a pilgrim of long ago through the moon-drenched, hay-scented sweetness of the country.