It had
eventually taken him twenty minutes to creep back to locked doors,
and another ten to ring up the inmates. His description of my
personal appearance, as reported in the papers, is the only thing
that reconciles me to the thought of his sufferings during that
half-hour.
But at the time I had other thoughts, and they lay too deep for
idle words, for to me also it was a bitter hour. I had not only
failed in my self-sought task; I had nearly killed my comrade into
the bargain. I had meant well by friend and foe in turn, and I had
ended in doing execrably by both. It was not all. my fault, but I
knew how much my weakness had contributed to the sum. And I must
walk with the man whose fault it was, who had travelled two hundred
miles to obtain this last proof of my weakness, to bring it home
to me, and to make our intimacy intolerable from that hour. I must
walk with him to Surbiton, but I need not talk; all. through Thames
Ditton I had ignored his sallies; nor yet when he ran his arm
through mine, on the river front, when we were nearly there, would
I break the seal my pride had set upon my lips.
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