there was no glint of hope anywhere. In half an hour he would have been
near her, with her, guiding her to the workshop, discussing the machine
with her; and savouring her uniqueness; feasting on her delicious and
adorable personality! ... `So sorry I can't come to-day!' "She doesn't
understand. She can't understand!" he said to himself. "No woman,
however cruel, would ever knowingly be so cruel as she has been. It
isn't possible!" Then he sought excuse for her, and then he cast the
excuse away angrily. She was not coming. There was no ground beneath
his feet. He was so exquisitely miserable that he could not face a
future of even ten hours ahead. He could not look at what his existence
would be till bedtime. The blow had deprived him of all force, all
courage. It was a wanton blow. He wished savagely that he had never
seen her... No! no! He could not call on the Orgreaves that night. He
could not do it. She might be out. And then...

His father entered, and began to grumble. Both Edwin and Maggie had
known since the beginning of dinner that Darius was quaking on the
precipice of a bad bilious attack. Edwin listened to the rising storm
of words. He had to resume the thread of his daily life. He knew what
affliction was.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWENTY.

THE MAN.

But he was young. Indeed to men of fifty, men just twice his age, he
seemed a mere boy and incapable of grief. He was so slim, and his limbs
were so loose, and his hair so fair, and his gestures often so naive,
that few of the mature people who saw him daily striding up and down
Trafalgar Road could have believed him to be acquainted with sorrow like
their sorrows. The next morning, as it were in justification of these
maturer people, his youth arose and fought with the malady in him, and,
if it did not conquer, it was not defeated. On the previous night,
after hours of hesitation, he had suddenly walked forth and gone down
Oak Street, and pushed open the garden gates of the Orgreaves, and gazed
at the facade of the house--not at her window, because that was at the
side--and it was all dark. The Orgreaves had gone to bed: he had
expected it. Even this perfectly futile reconnaissance had calmed him.
While dressing in the bleak sunrise he had looked at the oval lawn of
the Orgreaves' garden, and had seen Johnnie idly kicking a football on
it. Johnnie had probably spent the evening with her; and it was nothing
to Johnnie! She wa