Despair.
There was the sound of angry words in the back part of Mrs Mullion’s house that night, and more than once Geoffrey fancied he heard Uncle Paul’s voice raised high, but he had so often heard the old man storming about some trifle that he paid little heed to it, but finished the work he had on hand, thought how he would have liked to go up to An Morlock for an hour or two, and ended by bidding himself be patient, and all that would follow.
It was not yet nine, he found, and the house being very silent, he concluded that the old man had gone off somewhere for a rubber of whist.
“I wouldn’t half mind a rubber myself,” he thought. “I wonder where he has gone?”
“No. It won’t do. No rubbers. I’ll go and have a stroll on the cliff side and stretch my legs, or else I sha’n’t sleep, for my brain is all in a buzz.”
In this intent he put on his hat, lit his pipe, and went out, fancying he heard a sob in the farther room, but, not being sure, he attached little importance thereto.
“What a lovely night,” he mentally exclaimed, as, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, he descended the rugged lane, turned to the right, and went off along the cliff.
He had come out for repose, but his brain refused to be at rest, for now came back the sounds that he had heard in the cottage that evening.
“The old man’s been rowing that poor girl,” he thought, “finding out something concerning her carryings-on with somebody or another. Well, poor lass, I suppose she likes him; and, heigho! I feel very lenient now with people who go in for the commodity called love.
“I suppose it is Tregenna,” he continued. “If it is, he is a thorough-paced scoundrel, or he would acknowledge her openly. He’s playing fast and loose with her, and that’s what makes her look so pale and ill.”