A gun and a hedge—no accident can be more common than that. Say you want to shoot some rats that have been showing their ugly whiskers in the field ditches; take your gun, well charged, and blow your brains out among the brambles of an untrimmed hedge.
Or these motor-cars! He thought of the way they came racing down the highroad from Old Manninglea. How would it be to wait for one of these buzzing, crashing, stinking road monsters over there on the edge of the heath, and jump out just in front of it? If one stooped down and took the full shock on one's forehead, it would mean a mess that there would be no patching together again. But one could not attempt that in daylight, because the driver would jam the breaks on, swerve round one, do anything desperate rather than run into one. And if he could not avoid one, he would tell everybody at the inquest that it was a plain suicide and nothing else. There would be passengers in the car too, who would also swear to its being a suicide. And at night these traveling cars have such powerful head-lamps that the roadway is lighted up for a hundred yards in front of them. Even at night, they would recognize it as suicide.
Toward dusk every evening external things became more real, and his hold on life tightening, he suffered more acutely in each hour that passed. Night after night he went back to Hadleigh Wood. It was the wood of despair, the focal point of all his pain, and he was drawn to it irresistibly through the gathering darkness.
On the second evening he found it difficult to get away. Mavis stopped him, asked him some domestic question, and then began to talk about a new suit of clothes for their boy. He was alive again now, emerged from his somnambulistic state, and he gave full attention to this matter of Billy's new serge suit; nevertheless, all at once she apologized for troubling him, and inquired if he had anything on his mind.
"No, Mav, of course not."
"Are you sure, Will? Do tell me if you've something worrying you."
"What should I have to worry me?" and he put his arm round her ample waist, and gave her an affectionate squeeze.
"The hay's all right, isn't it?"
"Yes, everything is all right.... You can't do better than you've suggested about Billy. Take him with you to Manninglea—and, look here, if Mr. Jones can't fit him properly out of stock, let him make the suit to measure. Don't consider the extra expense. We can afford it."
"Thank you, Will." Mavis was delighted. "You've told me to do the very thing I wanted to do; but of course I'd never have done it without your authority. I've been longing to see the little chap in clothes regularly cut out and finished for him, and nobody else."