house, walked in a savage hurry down to the
end of the lot, and there, feeling no more at ease with himself, skirted
along the bank bordered by inlets filled with weedy loveliness, and came
to the lower end of the town where the cotton mills were. He glanced up
at them as he struck into the street past their office entrance, and
wondered what the stock was quoted at now, and whether an influx of
foreigners had displaced the old workmen. It had looked likely before he
went away. But he had no interest in it. He had no interest in
Addington, he thought: only in the sad case of Lydia thrown up against
the tumultuous horde of his released emotions and hurt by them and
charmed by them and, his remorseful judgment told him, insulted by
them. He could not, even that morning, have told how he felt about
Lydia, or whether he had any feeling at all, save a proper gratitude for
her tenderness to his father. But he had found her in his path, when his
hurt soul was crying out to all fostering womanhood to save him from the
ravening claw of woman's cruelty. She had felt his need, and they had
looked at each other with eyes that pierced defences. And then,
incarnate sympathy, tender youth, she had rested in his arms, and in the
generosity of her giving and the exquisiteness of the gift, he had been
swept into that current where there is no staying except by an anguish
of denial. It was chaos within him. He did not think of his allegiance
to Esther, nor was he passionately desirous, with his whole mind, of
love for this new Lydia. He was in a whirl of emotion, and hated life
where you could never really right yourself, once you were wrong.

He kept on outside the town, and presently walked with exhilaration
because nobody knew him and he was free, and the day was of an exquisite
beauty, the topmost flower of the waxing spring. The road was marked by
elms, aisled and vaulted, and birds called enchantingly. He was able to
lay aside cool knowledge of the fight whereby all things live and, such
was the desire of his mind, to partake of pleasure, to regard them as
poets do and children and pitiful women: the birds as lumps of free
delight, winged particles of joy. The song-birds were keen participants
of sport, killing to eat, and bigger birds were killing them. But
because they sang and their feathers were newly painted, he let himself
ignore that open scandal and loved them for an angel choir.

Coming to another village, though he knew it