He strode a pace towards her, and caught hold of her right arm.
“In the old days a man would have flogged his wife for such words. I’ve a damned good mind to box your ears.”
“Have a try!” said Joyce, breathing hard.
He didn’t box her ears, but let her arm go and dropped his hands to his side, and stood there with his head bowed, staring at the floor. There was silence between them for at least a minute, which seemed like an hour. Joyce for the first time was weeping, with her face turned away from him.
Presently he spoke again.
“It rather looks as though I’d made a mistake. I thought you still loved me, in spite of drifting away a bit. It seems any love you once had is like that little fire of yours—not much ever, and now burnt out. Why, God alone knows, not I! But it’s a pity. Perhaps it’s my fault partly. I may come to see that one day. Now, to-night, I think you’ve been hellish to me. I’ll clear out to-morrow. . . . If you want me ever, I’ll come.”
He stood at the doorway, looking back at her. She stood by the side of the little bed where she had slept as a child, with her face turned away and her body shaken by sobs. He hated to part from her like that, and this was the parting.
He spoke her name once more.
“Joyce!”
She didn’t answer him, and he left her room and shut the door. Next morning he left Holme Ottery before breakfast, and went back to town, but not to the little house in Holland Street.