Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 2.djvu/208

194 "You can endure it, then, the sight of me?"

"Haven't I told you that I thought of going to you?"

"Yes—but you didn't go," said Rose. "You came and went like a sentinel, and if it was to watch me"

Paul interrupted her. "It wasn't to watch you."

"Then what was it for?"

"It was to keep myself quiet," said Paul.

"But you're anything but quiet."

"Yes," he dismally allowed; "I'm anything but quiet."

"There's something then that may help you: it's one of two things for which I've come to you. And there's no one but you to care. You may care a very little; it may give you a grain of comfort. Let your comfort be that I've failed."

Paul, after a long look at her, turned away with a vague, dumb gesture, and it was a part of his sore trouble that, in his wasted strength, he had no outlet for emotion, no channel even for pain. She took in for a moment his clumsy, massive misery. "No—you loathe my presence," she said.