ich man had seen, lurking
within man's fate. Pierson recoiled from it, and resumed his march along
the Embankment, almost deserted in the bitter cold. He came to where, in
the opening of the Underground railway, he could see the little forms of
people moving, little orange and red lights glowing. The sight arrested
him by its warmth and motion. Was it not all a dream? That woman and her
daughter, had they really come? Had not Noel been but an apparition, her
words a trick which his nerves had played him? Then, too vividly again,
he saw her face against the dark stuff of the curtain, the curve of
her hand plucking at her blouse, heard the sound of his own horrified:
"Nollie!" No illusion, no deception! The edifice of his life was in the
dust. And a queer and ghastly company of faces came about him; faces he
had thought friendly, of good men and women whom he knew, yet at that
moment did not know, all gathered round Noel, with fingers pointing at
her. He staggered back from that vision, could not bear it, could not
recognise this calamity. With a sort of comfort, yet an aching sense of
unreality, his mind flew to all those summer holidays spent in Scotland,
Ireland, Cornwall, Wales, by mountain and lake, with his two girls; what
sunsets, and turning leaves, birds, beasts, and insects they had watched
together! From their youthful companionship, their eagerness, their
confidence in him, he had known so much warmth and pleasure. If all
those memories were true, surely this could not be true. He felt
suddenly that he must hurry back, go straight to Noel, tell her that she
had been cruel to him, or assure himself that, for the moment, she had
been insane: His temper rose suddenly, took fire. He felt anger against
her, against every one he knew, against life itself. Thrusting his hands
deep into the pockets of his thin black overcoat, he plunged into that
narrow glowing tunnel of the station booking-office, which led back
to the crowded streets. But by the time he reached home his anger had
evaporated; he felt nothing but utter lassitude. It was nine o'clock,
and the maids had cleared the dining table. In despair Noel had gone
up to her room. He had no courage left, and sat down supperless at his
little piano, letting his fingers find soft painful harmonies, so that
Noel perhaps heard the faint far thrumming of that music through uneasy
dreams. And there he stayed, till it became time for him to go forth to
the Old Year's Midnig