But when the hour of exaltation had passed and given way to the dreary commonplace, when the nurse came to wash him like a child, or to chatter pleasantly of the outside world, the revue which she had seen on her free afternoon, or the sentimental novel which had beguiled her scanty leisure, he knew that he had been living in a land of dreams. His real achievement Olivia knew, and by it she was unmoved. Myra had held out to him no chance of hope; only certainty of despair. By no further achievement could Olivia be persuaded. She realized her Will-o’-the-Wisp as what it really was, a miasmatic gas leading her into quagmires. She would bitterly resent his reappearance. It would be another trick, another way of flaunting before her under false pretences. As well write to her now that he was a mangled wreck in University College Hospital.
In the course of time he was able to leave his bed and be wheeled about the ward and afterwards to hobble about on a crutch. But the injured leg was just a bit shorter than the other, so that he was condemned to a perpetual limp; and though the ribs were mended, yet their breakage had occasioned internal lesions which would have to be watched for the rest of his life. No more adventures in wide spaces. No more tramps to John o’ Groats.
“But I’m a born wanderer,” he cried to the surgeon who made the final pronouncement. “What shall I do when the wander fever is on me?”
“Fill yourself up with bromide and stick leeches on your head.”
He laughed into the smiling kindly face, and was silent for a moment.
“I can drive a car, I suppose?” he said after a while.
“Safer to drive a horse. You haven’t to crank it up.”
“So I’m going out, a hopeless crock.”
“Oh no. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t live, with reasonable care, to ninety. You’re fit for light work. Why not office work? An educated chap like you——By the way, you were off to Poland, if I remember rightly, when you met with your accident. What’s your trade or profession?”
“Before the war, I was a cosmopolitan chauffeur,” said Triona.