Norman nodded.
Tetlow gave a weary sigh. "Anyhow, she's safe at home with her father. He's found a backer for his experiments."
"That's good," said Norman.
"You can spare me for ten days," Tetlow went on. "I'd be of no use if I stayed."
There was a depth of misery in his kind gray eyes that moved Norman to get up and lay a friendly hand on his shoulder. "It's the best thing, old man. She wasn't for you."
Tetlow dropped into a chair and sobbed. "It has killed me," he groaned. "I don't mean I'll commit suicide or die. I mean I'm dead inside—dead."
"Oh, come, Billy—where's your good sense?"
"I know what I'm talking about," said he. "Norman, God help the man who meets the woman he really wants—God help him if she doesn't want him. You don't understand. You'll never have the experience. Any woman you wanted would be sure to want you."
Norman, his hand still on Tetlow's shoulder, was staring ahead with a terrible expression upon his strong features.
"If she could see the inside of me—the part that's the real me—I think she would love me—or learn to love me. But she can only see the outside—this homely face and body of mine. It's horrible, Fred—to have a mind and a heart fit for love and for being loved, and an outside that repels it. And how many of us poor devils of that sort there are—men and women both!"