lief at getting away from everybody. But emotionally he was dead--like
cheap champagne gone flat, as he expressed it in one twisted mood of
self-revelation.

Probably he was thinking of Connie Edwards and of their last spree
together.

But he never spoke of her.

And it was very unlikely that the swamp would give him a chance to see
any of them again.

After all, he had stood for something. He was a rudderless little craft
that had come leaking and tumbling willy-nilly in the wake of the bigger
vessel. But also he had been a sort of talisman. He had protected
Robert as the weak, when they are humble and loving, can protect the
strong, giving them greater confidence, making their defeat impossible.
With his going went security. Little old fears came crawling out of
their hiding-places. At night when Robert climbed the dark stairs to
their stable-attic, they set upon him. They clawed his heart. He called
to Christine before he saw her, and the answering silence made him sick
with panic. It was reasonless panic, for Christine often fell asleep at
dusk. She was difficult to wake and when she woke it was strangely, with
a look of bewilderment, like a traveller who has come home after a long
absence. Once she had spoken his father's name with a ringing joy, and
he had answered roughly and had seen her shrink back into herself. Her
little hands trembled, fumbling apologetically with the shabby bag she
always carried. She was like a girl who, in one withering tragic moment,
had become old. But his aching love found no outlet, no word of regret
or tenderness. It recoiled back on himself in a dead weight of pain.

He began to watch himself like a sick man. There were hours when he knew
his brain to be losing edge--black periods of hideous impotency which,
when they passed, left him shaken and wet with terror. Supposing, at the
end of everything, be failed? He didn't care so much. His very power of
caring had been dissipated. His single purpose lost itself amidst
incompatible dreams. He was being torn asunder--and there was a limit to
endurance.

Cosgrave had failed. He couldn't concentrate. He was always looking for
happiness. He had fallen in love and wasted himself and made a mess of
his life.

It was mad to fall in love.

And yet the worst dread of all was the dread of losing Francey. It
seemed even the most unreasonable, for they had their work in common and
they loved one another. There w