When he reached the cottage he put the child down again in the cot and covered it up warmly. Then he walked about staring at his misery. He knew it had grown utterly past bearing. Everything in the place spoke of Dot, spoke loudly and insistently, the silent piano, the dead flowers in the vases, the foolish little red watering pot on the verandah nail, the small garden boots in the [p 151] ]hall corner with the red clay of the roads dried on the heels. When he poured out his coffee at breakfast time he shuddered because he saw beside him the little dear bright face that was not there—when he helped himself to an egg he could not eat it, because the stand held only two, instead of the by custom sacred three.
That was the warm old jacket on the second hall peg that she always slipped on, to sit outside with him for his smoke, the big poppy trimmed hat beside it, still kept the shape of her head in its crown. He could not get away from it all. His eyes too refused to give up the picture of her they had seen to-night, the tender innocent face, the pure eyes, the trembling lips. Half-past ten brought the very end of his endurance, his bitterness and his unbelief.
It had taken all these six days for his brain to grow clear and healthy again; with the lifting of the strange cloud came the sudden horror of the thing he had done, a shame at the shame he had heaped on her. He found [p 152] ]responsibilities that were his, he remembered the tenderness and watchfulness and love which her eighteen years demanded, he saw with lightning clearness that it had been sheer insanity that had distorted a simple friendship and shamed them both.
He took up his hat to go out again. He would go and beseech her forgiveness though he told himself of course, she could not possibly give it. Still he would entreat her.
Then the strange wheel began again in his head, and as he walked a new hot swinging sensation there, made him almost unconscious of what was going on for minutes together. He took off his hat and went on blindly, there were two shrinking figures in the shadow by the fence but he did not heed them.
He knew quite well now what was going to happen to him, he was getting that same brain fever again, he had had two years ago; it accounted for everything.
He found a strange comfort in the knowledge. He was going to Dot—by the time he got to the lights and voices of the house he [p 153] ]knew his senses would have gone and his illness come upon him, his danger would touch her little tender heart and she would forgive. He even saw a vision of his convalescence and white beautiful days beyond.
Then he came to the lights and people of the house, and before the little mother could speak a word, the danger came upon him and the need of forgiveness.
[p 154]
]CHAPTER XV
SULLIVAN WOOSTER, GENTLEMAN
‘Feel where my life broke off from thine