‘Daddy came,’ said Eleanor, and popped up her head.
I looked round at Walter, surprised to see him there so soon. And then he told me about his headache. I could not take in what he said; it seemed unimportant and trivial; little things about some one a long way off.
I said:
‘George is killed,’ and stood looking at him, across Eleanor’s little cot.
He drew in his breath sharply, and put his hands up to his head. That was a gesture of his, familiar to me now.
I gave him Mollie’s letter, and he read it in silence.
‘For you’—he said at last, ‘and for me⸺’
And he dropped his hands limply on his knee.
I was astonished at the expression of acute personal sorrow on his face; he had not seemed to care much for George when he was alive. I went across to him, and sat beside him on the bed. I stroked his shoulder, I know, and tried to console him. I don’t know what I said. It happened like this so often now; these fits of despondency, almost of remorse, and my attempts to encourage him. It had become in a sense automatic. It seemed to me, at times, that I had no more to give; that I was drawing water from a well that was dry; but to-night it was different; I felt somehow beyond all that. I did not speak to him of my conviction, of what I felt myself about George, and George’s death. It was no use speaking to Walter of things like that, I knew.
We went to bed early on account of Walter’s headache. I, too, was glad to go.