n in that fellow Bosinney to send her mad? For
there was madness after all in what she had done--crazy moonstruck
madness, in which all sense of values had been lost, and her life and his
life ruined! And for a moment he was filled with a sort of exaltation,
as though he were a man read of in a story who, possessed by the
Christian spirit, would restore to her all the prizes of existence,
forgiving and forgetting, and becoming the godfather of her future.
Under a tree opposite Knightsbridge Barracks, where the moon-light struck
down clear and white, he took out once more the morocco case, and let the
beams draw colour from those stones. Yes, they were of the first water!
But, at the hard closing snap of the case, another cold shiver ran
through his nerves; and he walked on faster, clenching his gloved hands
in the pockets of his coat, almost hoping she would not be in. The
thought of how mysterious she was again beset him. Dining alone there
night after night--in an evening dress, too, as if she were making
believe to be in society! Playing the piano--to herself! Not even a dog
or cat, so far as he had seen. And that reminded him suddenly of the
mare he kept for station work at Mapledurham. If ever he went to the
stable, there she was quite alone, half asleep, and yet, on her home
journeys going more freely than on her way out, as if longing to be back
and lonely in her stable! 'I would treat her well,' he thought
incoherently. 'I would be very careful.' And all that capacity for home
life of which a mocking Fate seemed for ever to have deprived him swelled
suddenly in Soames, so that he dreamed dreams opposite South Kensington
Station. In the King's Road a man came slithering out of a public house
playing a concertina. Soames watched him for a moment dance crazily on
the pavement to his own drawling jagged sounds, then crossed over to
avoid contact with this piece of drunken foolery. A night in the
lock-up! What asses people were! But the man had noticed his movement
of avoidance, and streams of genial blasphemy followed him across the
street. 'I hope they'll run him in,' thought Soames viciously. 'To have
ruffians like that about, with women out alone!' A woman's figure in
front had induced this thought. Her walk seemed oddly familiar, and when
she turned the corner for which he was bound, his heart began to beat.
He hastened on to the corner to make certain. Yes! It was Irene; he
could not mistake