Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/254



could not sleep. He went to bed, but at two o'clock he rose and drew on some clothes. Restlessly he walked about the house, turning over different plans in his head. If it were not for the child he would have closed the house and returned to Halifax. Yet he had no yearnings for his old life there. Grimstone and he seemed to belong to one another. And the child—a new rush of tenderness for it swept through him. When all was said and done, it was his child and he loved it with all the protective strength of his nature.

He had no intention of following Fawnie and Jammery. He would not touch her again, if she came on her knees. He believed Jammery loved her—more than he ever could—and she was very sweet to love. As Jammery had said, one couldn't ever forget her. It was impossible to think that she would sit before the fire in the evening no more—with the ruddy glow on her face, on her supple folded hands, on her bracelet touching it to fire. That damned bracelet—the hypocrisy of her! "If you beat me I will lov' you more than ever." He longed to kill her, and tramped up and down the hollow echoing house, saying so, to the walls, to the streaming windows, to the black hearth.

At six o'clock he made himself some breakfast and fed the child who, exhausted by the excitement of the day before, went immediately to sleep again. Lighting his pipe,