CHAPTER V
SEPARATION
I loved and love you—here is simple speech;
I loved and love you, who are out of reach.
—WILLIAM WATSON.
For a minute or two the possibility that Denzil's aunt might recognize him rose up and flooded out everything else in the mind of Felix. That would be the culminating point of shame. Yet, as he thought it over, he felt nearly certain that she could not. She had not seen him since he was a Rugby boy. He was changed out of all knowledge, and he had never been considered like his father, so there would be no family likeness to guide her. And then there was the safeguard of his disreputable appearance.
Choking down his nervousness, and by a great effort avoiding looking at Miss Rawson, he mumbled out, with as thick a Cockney accent as he could assume, the fact that his sister was ill aboard a canal boat at the wharf. She had had an accident cleaning "winders." She fell out over the rail of a balcony. He faltered out his story, aware of very formidable gaps in it, should he be called upon to substantiate it. But if the doctor was to help the suffering child he must know what had happened to her. The pickle-factory story and the anæmia were no good here, though they had served the George Barnes. He added the fact that they had no money.
Felix became aware that Miss Rawson was looking at him with her kind face charged with pity. She laid her hand upon the arm of the doctor.
"Here is my motor," said she; "jump in. What do you say is the name of the barge? The Sarah Dawkes? Yes, thank you, you will follow on foot, will you not?"
He assented, relieved beyond measure to think of the approaching help for Rona. The two got into the car, which whizzed out of sight in a moment, and Felix stumbled back, limping in his worn-out boots, along the mile to the village.
He had forgotten the windings of the river. He had not realized that, though ten miles or more along the water to Normansgrave, Dunhythe was only a very few miles by road.
He was all wrapped up in the thought of what he was to do. He could not face Denzil—Denzil would know him in a moment. And if Miss Rawson were to take an interest in the case, who knew but that Denzil might at any moment appear?
He could not tell what feeling was uppermost, as at last he came in sight of the wharf. A small crowd of natives was collected on the landing-stage, the motor was still in waiting, and several people seemed to be picking their way about the encumbered deck of the Sarah Dawkes.