And something about her called to him, with the calling of the great, mysterious things, a calling that shamed and scorned that spirit of savage recklessness; that swift, relentless lust of power.
“What is anything in the world,” it seemed to cry, “compared to being true to one’s friend; true to one’s word; true to one’s love?”
He saw suddenly that in any case success and triumph would bring him little enough to gladden his heart; that whichever way he turned was gloom and darkness; that in that gloom a possible ray of light might still linger, if he could keep always the consciousness that, at the most critical hour of his life, he had rung true.
He raised his eyes suddenly, and straightened himself.
“What time does the next train leave?” he said. “I am coming.”
CHAPTER XLIII
After Hal had left, Lorraine sank into a stupor from weakness, and remained thus until towards evening. Then she revived, and seemed to comprehend better all that had happened; all that was happening still.
She knew that the child she had dreamed of would never lie in her arms and look up at her with Alymer’s eyes. She knew that in the first awful moments of realisation, and deathly weakness, her whole soul had so craved to see Alymer again that she had asked for him.
A few moments later the stupor had come down upon her exhausted senses, and without any further word or thought from her, Hal had gone on her errand.
At first, in the darkened room where she had suffered so much, she remembered only that very soon Alymer might be with her. And the thought, while it quickened her pulses, yet made her feel almost faint with the longing for him to come quickly. What if they were delayed, and this terrible weakness took her away from him without a last meeting.