Tom paused. The dramatic moment had come. He knew the kind of thing that they were expecting, and when he thought of the reality he laughed.
"One night—well, you won't believe me, I suppose, if I tell you I was very unhappy—no, unhappy is too strong—I was just nothing at all. You'd all been here to tea, and I went out for a walk down Bond Street to clear my head. It was raining and I found two old things taking shelter under a wooden standing. The old lady fainted while I was talking to them, and I saw them home—And—well, that's all!"
"That's all!" cried Millie Matcham. "Do you mean, Tom, that you fell in love with the old woman!"
Her laugh was shrill and anxious.
He laughed back. "Fell in love! That's just like you, Millie. You think that love must be in it every time. There isn't any love in this—and there isn't any devotion, or religion, or high-mindedness, or trying to improve them, or any of the things you imagine. On the contrary, they hate me, and I don't think that I'm very fond of them—except that I suppose one has a sort of affection for anybody who's brought one back to life again—when one didn't want to die!"
Henry Matcham broke in: "Tom, look here—upon my word, I don't believe that one of us has the least idea what you're talking about."
Tom looked around at them all and, in spite of himself, he was surprised at the change in their faces. The surprise was a shock. They were no longer regarding him with a gaze of tender, almost proprietary, interest. The eyes that stared at his were almost hostile, at any rate suspicious, alarmed. Alarmed about what? Possibly his sanity—possibly the misgiving that in a moment he was going to do or say something that would shock them all.
He realised as he looked at them that he had come, quite unexpectedly, upon the crisis of his life. They could understand it were he philanthropic, religious, sentimental. They were prepared for those things; they had read novels, they knew that such moods did occur. What they were not prepared for, what they most certainly would not stand, was exactly the explanation that he was about to give them. That would insult them, assault the very temple of their most sacred assurances. As he looked he knew that if he now spoke the truth he would for ever cut himself off from them. They would regard his case as hopeless. It would be in the future "Poor Tom."
He hated that—and for what was he giving them up? For the world that distrusted him, disbelieved in him, and would kill him if it could....