Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/333



ETER'S child was born on a night of frost when the stars were hard and fierce and a full moon, dull gold, flung high shadows upon the town.

During the afternoon the fear that had been in Clare's eyes for many weeks suddenly flamed into terror—the doctor was sent for and Peter was banished from the room.

Peter looked ludicrously, pitifully young as he sat, through the evening, in his room at the top of the house, staring in front of him, his face grey with anxiety, his broad shoulders set back as though ready for a blow; his strong fingers clutched the things on his writing-table, held them, dropped them, just like the hands of a blind man about the shining surface, tapping the wood.

He saw her always as he had seen her last night when she had caught his arm crying—“If I die, Peter Oh, Peter, if I die!” and he had comforted and stroked her hair, warming her cold fingers.

How young she was, how tiny for this suffering—and it was he, he who had brought it upon her! Now, she was lying in her bed, as he had once seen his mother lie, with her hair spread about the pillow, her hands gripping the sheets, her eyes wide and black—the vast^ hard bedroom closing her in, shutting her down—

She who loved comfort, who feared any pain, who would have Life safe and easy, that she should be forced—

The house was very still about him—no sound came up to him; it seemed to him that the hush was deliberate. The top branches of the trees in the little orchard touched his window and tapped ever and again; a fire burnt brightly, he had drawn his curtains and beyond the windows the great sheet of stars, the black houses, the white light of the moon.

And there, before him—what mockery! the neat pages of “The Stone House “now almost completed.