"Manwell, you're a confirmed fool," Barwell replied.
I put on my coat and hat, stuffed my gloves, which I hated, into my pocket, and went out into the street. The morning was dry and cold, the air was exhilarating and good to breathe. I gulped it down in mighty mouthfuls. It was good to be in the open street and feel the little winds whipping by in mad haste. Up in the office, steaming with cigarette smoke, it was so stuffy, so dead. Everything there was so artificial, so unreal, and I was altogether out of sympathy with all the individuals on the Dawn. "Do I like the Dawn?" I asked myself. I wanted to face things frankly at that moment. "Do I like journalism, or merely feel that I should like it?" But I made no effort to answer the question; it was not very important, and now I was walking hurriedly, trying to keep myself warm. Two things occurred to me at the same instant: I was short of money and I had not asked for my railway fare to Wales at the office. Where did the train start from? Was it Euston? I did not exactly know, and somehow it didn't seem to matter.
I would not go to Wales; I did not want to analyse my reasons for not going, but I was determined not to go. I felt that in going I would be betraying my own class, the workers. Moleskin Joe would never dream of doing a thing like that; why should I? I must make some excuse at the office, I thought, but asked myself the next instant why should I make any excuses? Besides, the office was like a prison; it choked me. I wanted to leave, but somehow felt that I ought not.
I found myself going along Gray's Inn Road towards my lodging-house. A girl opened a window and looked at me with a vacant stare. She was speaking to somebody in the room behind her and her voice trailed before me like a thin mist. She somewhat resembled Norah Ryan: the same white brow, the red lips, only that this girl had a sorrowful look in her eyes, as if too many weary thoughts had found expression there.
How often during the last four months had I thought of Norah Ryan. I longed for her with a mighty longing, and now that she was alone and in great trouble it was my duty to help her. I felt angry with myself for going up to London when I should have followed up my holier mission in Glasgow. What was fortune and fame to me if I did not make the girl whom I really loved happy? Daily it became clearer to me that I was earnestly and madly in love with Norah. We were meant for one another from childhood, although destiny played against us for a while. I would find her again and we would be happy, very happy, together, and the past would be blotted out in the great happiness which would be ours in the future. To me Norah was always pure and always good. In her I saw no wrong, no sin, and no evil. I would look for her until I found her, and finding her would do my best to make her happy.
The girl closed the window as I passed. I came to my lodgings, paid the landlady, and wrote to the Dawn saying that I was leaving London. I intended to tramp to the north, but a story of mine had just been published in —— and the money came to hand while I was settling with the landlady.
I learned later that Barwell went down to Wales. That night I set off by rail for Glasgow.