Manchester had never been more truly Manchester than on this dark July afternoon, with its low shapeless clouds, its darkness, wind, and pelting rain. David, staring out through the lozenge panes at the familiar gloom beyond, was suddenly carried by repulsion into the midst of a vision which was an agony—of a spring forest cut by threadlike paths; of a shadeless sun; of a white city steeped in charm, in gaiety.
Dora watched him timidly, new perceptions and alarms dawning in her.
'You were going to tell me about Louie,' she said.
He returned to himself, and abruptly turned with his back to the window, so that he saw the outer world no more.
'You heard that she was married?'
'Yes.'
'She has married a brute. It was partly my fault. I wanted to be rid of her; she got in my way. This man was in the same house; I left her to herself, and partly, I believe, to spite me, she went off with him. Then at the last when she wouldn't leave him I made her marry him. I bribed him to marry her. And he did. I had just enough money to make it worth his while. But he will ill-treat her; and she won't stay with him. She will go from bad to worse.'
Dora drew back, with her hand on the desk, staring at him with incredulous horror.
'But you were ill?' she stammered.
He shook his head.