r and son, save that each felt he must
not let the other go in any actual want. As there was no one to keep on
the home, and as they could neither of them bear the emptiness of the
house, Paul took lodgings in Nottingham, and Morel went to live with a
friendly family in Bestwood.

Everything seemed to have gone smash for the young man. He could not
paint. The picture he finished on the day of his mother's death--one
that satisfied him--was the last thing he did. At work there was no
Clara. When he came home he could not take up his brushes again. There
was nothing left.

So he was always in the town at one place or another, drinking,
knocking about with the men he knew. It really wearied him. He talked to
barmaids, to almost any woman, but there was that dark, strained look in
his eyes, as if he were hunting something.

Everything seemed so different, so unreal. There seemed no reason why
people should go along the street, and houses pile up in the daylight.
There seemed no reason why these things should occupy the space, instead
of leaving it empty. His friends talked to him: he heard the sounds, and
he answered. But why there should be the noise of speech he could not
understand.

He was most himself when he was alone, or working hard and mechanically
at the factory. In the latter case there was pure forgetfulness, when he
lapsed from consciousness. But it had to come to an end. It hurt him so,
that things had lost their reality. The first snowdrops came. He saw the
tiny drop-pearls among the grey. They would have given him the liveliest
emotion at one time. Now they were there, but they did not seem to mean
anything. In a few moments they would cease to occupy that place, and
just the space would be, where they had been. Tall, brilliant tram-cars
ran along the street at night. It seemed almost a wonder they should
trouble to rustle backwards and forwards. "Why trouble to go tilting
down to Trent Bridges?" he asked of the big trams. It seemed they just
as well might NOT be as be.

The realest thing was the thick darkness at night. That seemed to him
whole and comprehensible and restful. He could leave himself to it.
Suddenly a piece of paper started near his feet and blew along down the
pavement. He stood still, rigid, with clenched fists, a flame of agony
going over him. And he saw again the sick-room, his mother, her eyes.
Unconsciously he had been with her, in her company. The swift hop of
the paper reminded