Philip heard no more. The organ was very loud and triumphant.
“Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill,
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sovereign will.”
A red shaft of sunlight tipped down on Pete's uncovered head from the top of the wall. The blessed tears had come to him. He was sobbing aloud; he was alone with his love at last.
He was alone with her indeed. At that moment Kate was looking down from the window of her room. She saw him kneeling and praying by another's grave.
Philip never knew how he got out of the churchyard. He crawled out—creeping along by the wall, and slinking through the gate—heart-sick and all but heart-dead. When he came to himself, he was standing in Athol Street, and a company of jolly fellows in a jaunting-car, driving out of the golden sunset, were rattling past him with shouts and peals of laughter.
XXIII.
Kate was standing in her room with the door open, beating her hands together in the first helpless stupor of fear, when she saw a man coming up the stairs. His legs seemed to be giving way as he ascended; he was bent and feeble, and had all the look of great age. As he approached he lifted his face, which was old and withered. Then she saw who it was. It was Philip.
She made an involuntary cry, and he smiled upon her—a hard, frozen, terrible smile. “He is lost,” she thought. Her scared expression penetrated to his soul. He knew that she had seen everything. At first he tried to speak, but he could utter nothing. Then a mad desire seized him to lay hold of her—by the arms, by the shoulders, by the throat. Conquering this impulse, he stood motionless, passing his hands through his hair. She dropped her eyes and hung her head. Their abasement in each other's eyes was complete. He was ashamed before her, she was ashamed before him. One moment they faced each other thus, in silence, in pitiless and awful silence, and then slowly, very slowly, stupefied and crushed, he turned away and crept out of the house.
“It is the end—the end.” What was the use of going farther? He had fallen too low. His degradation was abject. It was hopeless, irreparable, irremediable. “End it all—end it all.” The words clamoured in his inmost soul.