Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/247

 “Thank the Lord,” said Stephen furiously and kicking out with his leg as though he had got some especial enemy's back directly in front of him, “that you've finished them damned articles. You've been sittin' here thinkin' and writin' till you've given yerself blue devils—down-along, too, with all them poor creatures hittin' each other and drinkin'—I oughtn't to have left yer up here so much alone—”

“No—you couldn't help it, Stephen—it's nothing to do with you. It's all more than you can manage and nobody in the world can help me. It's seven years and a bit now since I left Cornwall, isn't it?”

“Yes,” said Stephen, looking across at him.

“All that time I've never had a word nor a sign from any one there. Well, you might have thought that that would be long enough to break right away from it Well, it isn't—”

“Don't you go thinking about all that time. You've cleared it right away—”

“No, I haven't cleared it—that's just the point. I don't suppose one ever clears anything. All the time I was with Zanti I was reading so hard and living so safely that it was only at moments, when I was alone, that I thought about Treliss at all. But these last weeks it's been coming on me full tide.”

“What's been coming on you?”

“Well, Scaw House, I suppose and my father and grandfather. My grandfather told me once that I couldn't escape from the family and I can't—it's the most extraordinary thing—”

Stephen saw that Peter was growing agitated; his hands were clenched and his face was white.

“Mind you, I've seen my grandfather and father both go under it. My father went down all in a moment. It isn't any one thing—you can call it drink if you like—but it's simply three parts of us aching to go to the bad aching, that's the word. Anything rotten—women or drink or anything you like—as long as we lose control and let the devil get the upper hand. Let him get it once—really get it—and we're really done—”

Peter paused for a moment and then went on hurriedly