Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/121

 Or was it cowardice that kept him home? The childish fear of seeing them together?

He was not introspective. He was singularly inarticulate. He did not try to analyze his feelings or find words for them. He groped among them as he tramped over his fields or exercised his arms in currying the silken sides of the new filly who blew her sweet breath down his neck as she turned to nose him. The brothers did not speak of Grace until they stood on the platform the day of Edmund's departure. Then Derek said:

"I don't suppose I need look forward to a long separation, Ted. . . . Not with such an attraction next door."

Edmund answered seriously: "I can never hope for anything there. I'm too damned poor."

"Is she—going to write to you?"

"Of course."

There was that wretched stab at the heart again! He was thankful for the shriek of the locomotive. He wrung Edmund's hand.

He did not go to the Jerrolds for a fortnight.