But at that he rose and faced her.
“No,” he said, “I will not. I've given the other things a chance—all these years I've given them a chance. I've stood everything and at the end everything's taken away from me. What shall I go back to? Who wants me? Who cares? God!” he cried, standing there, white-faced, dry-eyed, almost defying her—“Why should I go? Just to fail again—to suffer all that again—to have them take everything I love from me again—to be broken again! No, let them break the others—I'm done with it....”
“And the others?” she answered him. “Is it to be always yourself? You've fought for your own hand and they've beaten you to your knees—fight now for something finer—”
She seemed as she appealed to him to be shining with some great conquering purpose. Here, with her poor body broken and torn, her spirit, the purer for her physical pain, confronted him, shamed him, stretched like a flaming sword before the mean paths that his own soul would follow.
But he beat her down. “I will not go back—you don't know—you don't understand—I will not go.”
III
The little dusty Minstrels' Gallery saw a good deal of him during these days. It was a lonely place at the top of the hotel, once intended to be picturesque and romantic for London visitors, but ultimately left to its own company with its magnificent view appreciated by no one.
Here Peter came. Every part of him now seemed to be at war with every other part. Had he gone straight to Scaw House with bag and baggage and never left it again, then the Westcott tradition might have caught him when he was in that numbed condition—caught him and held him.
Now he had stayed away just long enough for all the old Peter to have become alive and active again.
He looked back upon London with a great shuddering. The torment that he had suffered there he must never undergo again. Norah was now the one friend left to him in the world. He would cut himself into pieces to make these last days of hers happy, and yet the one thing that could give her happiness was that he should promise to go back.