“I’ve been walking since five o’clock.” He was silent for a moment. Then it came out, not in a grateful unburdening torrent, but in wrung jerky sentences, of which the last caught up and contained the whole hidden cause of pain:
“I was grown-up—didn’t hear the call ... and I wasn’t even aware of it.”
Something wrong here which lay too deep for her understanding. Merle asked no questions; content to dry his coat; touch lingeringly his hair and shoulders; give him the comfort she dimly felt he most needed.
“It didn’t matter, dear.”
“You’re not going to shut me out, you and Peter?”
“We couldn’t do without you, Stuart.”
“Thank you.” A tightness in his voice seemed to have snapped at her tender assurance. His fingers, which had gripped and twisted at hers till she could have cried out with the pain, now slackened their pressure. For the moment, the girl had succeeded in exorcising the demons which were so strangely tormenting his soul.
... A hush in the room. A hush so profound, that two little figures stirred restlessly in their corner, came tip-toeing hand-in-hand towards the door of the boudoir. But——
“It’s no good,” whispered Nobody-loves-me, as she tugged Puck backwards. “He’s still there.”...
Stuart looked up suddenly: “‘Wherefore to wait my pleasure, I put my Spring aside....’ I always knew it would be damnably easy—to slip beyond the pattern and never get back....” The demons were again at work within him. If only they would leave him in peace, just for a moment, mind and body.