‘There is nothing more galling than to receive pity
where we would fain inspire love.’
There had been a long and stormy meeting of creditors–fierce disputes over the accounts which were brought forward, much vituperation, much gesticulation, and Jerome Wellfield had sat through it all, like a man in a dream, scarcely hearing a word.
He leaned back in his chair, his hands in his pockets and his face set, his eyes fixed frowningly upon the green leather top of the table at which he sat. Two sentences which he had heard, earlier in the day, exchanged between two gentlemen in the coffee-room of his hotel, had banished all other subjects from his mind.
‘When is Falkenberg going to be back from that immense Reise in’s Blaue that he undertook in May? and has he left his wife alone all this time?’
‘Oh, I fancy no one knows when he will be back. His wife is at his place at Lahnburg. She is very quiet, they say, and people think they have had a quarrel. Don’t know how much of it is true, I am sure.’
He had heard every word of it. The two speakers had sat at the next table to his as he breakfasted that morning. Ever since, heart and head alike had been in a tumult. Not an hour’s journey distant from him, and alone! Of course he must not go to see her, it would be the height of folly and presumption and wickedness; but could he not get one glimpse of her, take one glance into her face unseen by her; have a view of her, perhaps, as she walked in her garden–or behold some outline of her form at the window. That would be enough. There would be nothing wrong in that; he could see her, and she would not see him; having seen her, he could return home with a quieter heart.
The mention of her name, the knowledge of her proximity to him, had revealed, as such incidents do reveal, his own inmost soul to himself, and shrined there he found Sara Ford still, and knew not whether to rejoice that he yet loved her whose equal he had never seen, or whether to mourn that he could not cast that love aside, and content himself with the things that were his.
Thus he debated and debated within himself, endeavouring to find reasons why he should go to Lahnburg, while all the time, deep in his heart there was the full consciousness that he ought on no consideration to go near the place, that to do it would be an insult to Sara and to his own wife, and could bring nothing but misery to himself.
The meeting had been held at Frankfort in the forenoon, and was over by two o’clock. Jerome, when it was over, went into the hall of his hotel, and looking round, found what he had come for, though he had not even in his own mind confessed so much–a railway time-table fixed against the wall. He studied it, and saw that there were many trains on the Lahnburg line; one at five o’clock from Frankfort, arriving at Lahnburg at six. Three hours were before him in which to decide, and he said within himself: