But once outside he did not know where to go or what to do. Leaving the
town behind him he made for the Lake, and roved aimlessly and
disconsolately about, choosing sheltered paths and remote roads where he
would be unlikely to run the gauntlet of acquaintances. For he shrank
from recognition on this particular day, when all his domestic privacies
were being bared to the public view. But altogether of late he had
fought shy of meeting people. Their hard, matter-of-fact faces showed
him only too plainly what they thought of him. At first he had been fool
enough to scan them eagerly, in the hope of finding one saving touch of
sympathy or comprehension. But he might as well have looked for grief in
the eyes of an undertaker's mute. And so he had shrunk back into
himself, wearing his stiffest air as a shield and leaving it to Mary to
parry colonial inquisitiveness.
When he reckoned that he had allowed time enough for the disposal of the
last pots and pans, he rose and made his way--well, the word "home" was
by now become a mere figure of speech. He entered a scene of the wildest
confusion. The actual sale was over, but the work of stripping the house
only begun, and successful bidders were dragging off their spoils. His
glass-fronted bookcase had been got as far as the surgery-door. There it
had stuck fast; and an angry altercation was going on, how best to set
it free. A woman passed him bearing Mary's girandoles; another had the
dining-room clock under her arm; a third trailed a whatnot after her.
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