Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 1.pdf/301

Rh "That infernal horse will go galloping to the house in the approved dramatic style. Little Madam'll be scared out of her wits. And I&hellip; I shall have to explain how it all happened. While she vivisects me with questions.

"I'm a jolly good mind to have spring-guns and man-traps put in this preserve. Confound the Law!"

§ 50

the Angel, thinking that Gotch was dead, went wandering off in a passion of remorse and fear through the brakes and copses along the Sidder. You can scarcely imagine how appalled he was at this last and overwhelming proof of his encroaching humanity. All the darkness, passion, and pain of life seemed closing in upon him, inexorably, becoming part of him, chaining him to all that a week ago he had found strange and pitiful in men.

"Truly, this is no world for an Angel!" said the Angel. "It is a World of War, a World of Pain, a World of Death. Anger comes upon one.&hellip; I who knew not pain and anger, stand here with blood stains on my hands. I have fallen. To come into this world is to fall. One must hunger and thirst and be tormented with a thousand desires. One must fight for foothold, be angry and strike"

He lifted up his hands to Heaven, the ultimate bitterness of helpless remorse in his face, and then flung them down with a gesture of despair. The prison walls of this narrow, passionate life seemed creeping in upon him, certainly and steadily, to crush him 269