Did Challis ever say to himself, to put a finishing-touch on the oddity of his position, "What would it matter? If it did put a barrier between me and Judith, would it not give me back my old home and the kids?" The story can conceive his doing so, and also that his mind would then wander back on his old days ... not always perfect; but still!... and then would shudder at its own brutality, for never asking what of Judith, in that case? What would be left for her? For Challis, though he had speculated a good deal in his writings on the many ways of loving that there are, had scarcely applied his conclusions to himself. Some theorists will have it that no man ever has the slightest consideration for the woman he loves—in one of the ways, mind you!—suppose we say the volcanic way! They hold that it is himself he loves all the time.
However, the Bishop said it was impossible that Bill should pass. And he ought to have known.
[CHAPTER XL]
HOW MISS FOSSETT WENT TO ROYD. ON SUSPENSION OF OPINION. ANXIETY ABOUT LIZARANN. A VISIT TO JIM, AND A RETROSPECT. HOW MISS FOSSETT MADE A NICE MESS OF IT
A hot July was drawing to a close, and Athelstan Taylor and his friend Gus's sister Adeline Fossett were out early in the Rectory garden, and had many things to talk about. It was the Saturday morning of a Friday to Monday visit, which could not be prolonged, on any terms, till Tuesday.
One of the things they had to talk about was sad, as anyone could have told from their voices, without hearing a word distinctly. Because they were speaking with such very resolute cheerfulness of it; putting such a good face on it; each of them evidently thinking the other wanted an ally.
"I go by Sidrophel." It was Athelstan who said this. "Taking a man out of London to live on the south shore of the Mediterranean is like giving meat and drink after a diet of poisons. You'll see Gus's first letters will say he's well. He won't be, of course; one mustn't expect miracles. But it will seem like that—to him."
"I think that's very likely. But when I said I wished I had been able to go with him, I didn't mean that. I don't believe he'll want any coddling or looking after out there. What I was thinking of was the poor boy being so lonely, all by himself." But Athelstan laughed out at this: the idea of a pastor of a flock being lonely!—the last thing in the world! The lady admitted this, and helped it a little. "Yes—and, after all, it isn't as if we had seen each other every day when he was in London." Then she reflected a little, and added: "Besides, I couldn't have gone, anyhow, because of mother." Of whom this story can report nothing, no questions having been asked. "Mother" must have her place in it as the reason Miss Fossett could not go to Tunis.