"Why not?"
"I went to her once. I may say twice," he slowly said, "since we separated." And as he stopped speaking Bulstrode could only imagine what the result had been.
"I don't think I'm a Westboro' really, for I couldn't follow any woman's carriage puling like a schoolboy as my ancestor did. There's a great deal of my mother's blood in me, and it's a different blend."
Bulstrode's eyes were on the little book between the Duke's aristocratic hands.
"She has, I grant you, a lot to forgive; but she quite well knows all the blame I acknowledge, quite well. I don't believe I'm any worse than the run of mankind, and whether I am or not, I've made all the amends I can and I have nothing more to say."
His eyeglass had dropped; his face looked worn; he showed his age more than a happier man would have done at his years His mood of thinking it out by himself continued for so long that Bulstrode finally asked:
"What, if I may be so near you as to question, do you mean, old chap, to do?"
Westboro' had it all laid out for himself—his ready answer showed it.
"You say I'm not a lover," he reminded his friend; "no doubt you're right, but I'm an affectionate chap, at any rate, I can't bear this—" He looked about hopelessly. The words were forced out by the high mark of his unhappiness: "—this infernal solitude. Even when a good comrade like yourself is in it, the house seems to speak to me from the empty rooms in this wing." (Bulstrode knew he was thinking of the nurseries with the low latches and little gates.) "I can't stand it. When I get out of England and abroad the place fetches me back again like a magnet. I'm a home-keeping sort of man, and I want my home."
His friend gently urged in the silence: "Well?"