Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/410

 Kit seemed benumbed. He suffered with his father, but more like a child than a man. He watched and waited with an inarticulate, dry helplessness. It was Molly who rebelled, understanding the dumb appeal of that other rebel, the old gladiator who asked of death nothing but that last and merciful stab of the sword.

They were lying awake, and she drew Kit's head to her shoulder.

"Oh, my dear, why don't you do it?"

"What?"

His voice expressed the anguish of a tragic weariness.

"Put an end to it. Or—if you wish it—I will."

He drew away from her and sat up in bed. A moon was shining upon the window.

"He is in torment," she said.

She felt Kit trembling. Then he slipped out of bed and she saw him dimly, putting on his clothes. His silence was almost furtive. He left her; she heard him go into his father's room.

Sorrell was awake, with the blind up, and the moonlight shining upon the bed. He was in great pain.

"That you—old chap?"

Kit's voice was half broken.

"Anything I can do?"

"I'm thirsty—I could eat—one of those peaches"

"Yes, father."

Christopher switched on a shaded light. A dish of peaches lay on the table beside the bed, and the bloom of the fruit contrasted with his father's tortured and ruined face.

"I'll peel one for you."

A dessert knife and fork were there, and as Kit stripped the soft skin from the juicy pulp of the fruit he felt his throat full of a dry anguish.

"Thanks, old chap."

Sorrell ate eagerly, and with a pathetic and starved relish, his eyes large and glassy under his lined forehead.

"If you will give me a dose"

"Yes, father"

"A little sleep. O, my God; it's bad—you know, Kit. I"

Something broke in Kit. He felt that it was another man