“This flings her on to the mercy of society, Dingle.”
“Well, society won’t eat her. Society’s pretty merciful, so far as I can see. You talk it over with her, and get her views of the situation—whatever they may be.”
“I’ll only ask one question. Does she know that you don’t intend to divorce her?”
“She does not. I only decided myself half an hour before you called.”
“Is it possible for me to prevail with you to change your mind, Mr. Dingle?”
“No; because with your views of what’s straight and honourable, you won’t try. You know I can’t divorce her. Why? Because you was too good and clean a man to make it possible. So long. Just you think over all I’ve said. You don’t know your luck yet, but you will.”
Jordan Kellock went out into the darkness, and he staggered like a man in drink. He tottered down the hill from Ashprington, and intended to start then and there for Cornworthy and Medora; but he found himself physically unequal to any such pilgrimage. His knees shook and his muscles were turned to wool. He walked to the inn, ascended to bed, and lay phantom-ridden through the hours of an interminable night. The shock of what he had heard was so great that his mind was too stunned to measure it. A situation, that demanded deepest reflection by its own horror, robbed him of the power to reflect. He lay and panted like a wounded animal. He could not think by reason of the force of his feelings. He could only lick his smarting wounds. Then he fell into genuine grief for Medora’s plight. Actual physical symptoms intruded. He found his eyes affected and strange movements in his heart and stomach. His hands shook in the morning, and he cut himself shaving—a thing that he had not done for years. He could not eat, yet suffered from a sensation of emptiness. Daylight by no means modified his sense of loss and chaos. It found him before all things desirous to see Medora; but, by the time he was up and dressed, this purpose failed him for a season, and his thoughts were occupied with Knox. Then he turned again to Medora, and felt that life must be suspended until he could see her and break to her what had happened. It was now too late to visit Cornworthy until the day’s work should be done, and remembering how often work had saved a situation, solved a problem and helped him through difficult hours, Kellock proceeded to the Mill, and was thankful to be there. He felt that labour would calm his nerves, restore his balance, and assist him, before the evening came, to survey his situation in the light of this convulsion. He found himself entirely interested in what Medora would do; and he believed that he knew. His heart bled for her.
Thus absorbed, he reached the vat. He was engaged upon the largest sheets of drawing-paper at the time—work calling for more than average lifting power and muscular energy—and he was glad that now, for a while, work must take the first demand upon mind and body alike.
The vats were full, and the machinery hummed overhead; coucher and layer stood at their places, and Jordan, slipping his deckle upon the mould, grasped it with thumb on edge, and sank it into the pulp.
Elsewhere Knox, Robert Life and others had taken up their positions at the breast of the vats with their assistants about them, and the work of paper-making went on its immemorial way.