Chapter Fifty Three.
Jules is from Home.
“And that is the woman who told me she loved me!” said Stratton as he drew back behind the rocks and walked slowly away.
There was a strangely mingled feeling in his breast; one moment it was horror, the next disgust, that they two should join hands: she so young and beautiful, he prematurely aged and little better than an idiot. Then it was misery—then despair, which swept over his soul to join forces and harrow him so that he felt that he could bear no more.
It was the thought of Brettison that saved him just as the blood was rushing to his head and a stroke was imminent.
He had left his friend apparently dying, and had rushed off to save Myra.
“While I was wanted there,” he muttered in a weak, piteous way. “Ah, it has all been a dream, and now I am awake. Poor Brettison, my best friend after all.”
For a few moments the blood flushed to his temples in his resentment against Myra, and then against Guest; for, after all that he had said to him on the past night, how could he entirely accept the position he occupied and remain tacit and content there with that man in his company?