Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/107

 "You shan't. By God,—get out of the way,—Mrs. Marks."

He tore at the trunk, heaved it up, leaving a great scar upon the wall, and the woman, retreating, watched his wildness with scared eyes. For he looked like a man storming a breach, mouth awry, eyes protruding; panting, cursing. But he did not curse; he had no breath for it. He banged the thing over and over, and thrust it up on to the landing, and there his knees gave way and he had to sit down hurriedly on the vanquished trunk.

"Oh,—my God!"

"Put your head down, Steve," said she.

Sorrell put his head between his knees, and the housekeeper, running into one of the bedrooms, returned with a glass of water. She stood over Sorrell, her hand resting lightly on his shoulder.

"Drink this, Stephen. This has got to stop, you know. I am going down to tell that mountain of laziness"

Sorrell's face, still ghastly but slightly smiling, appeared from between his knees.

"No,—please don't. I lost my temper, that's all. I am going to get this thing up. I shall be all right in a minute."

"Drink some water. If you must try and kill yourself"

His hand shook as he held the glass.

"It's better to be killed—than to give in—to him."

"Oh, is it! I'm going to help you with that trunk, Stephen. What's the number of the room?"

"Thirty-five."

And help him she did, for she was a little woman of great determination, and between them they manœuvred the "black coffin"—as she called it—up the last flight and along the passage to No. 35. Sorrell knocked. The lady told him to enter; she had been waiting.

"I thought you had gone to sleep with it," she said.

Sorrell hauled the thing into the room.

"It is rather heavy, madam."

She presented him with a sixpence, an ironical sixpence so it seemed to Sorrell, and he went forth with the coin shut up in his fist to show it to Mrs. Marks, but the housekeeper had disappeared. On his way downstairs he paused to look