Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/379

 “Will she forgive me?”

“Dear Clare,” said Mrs. Rossiter, rising brightly and with a general air of benevolence towards all the sinners in existence, “is the most forgiving creature in the world.”

He went down to her bedroom and found her lying on a sofa and reading a novel.

He fell on his knees at her side—“Clare—darling—I'm a beast, a brute—”

She suddenly turned her face into the cushions and burst into passionate crying. “Oh! it's horrible—horrible—horrible—”

He kissed her hand and then getting on to his feet again, stood looking at her awkwardly, struggling for words with which to comfort her.

And then at luncheon, there was a little, pencilled feeble note for Peter from Norah Monogue. “Please, if you can spare half an hour come to me. In a day or two I am off to the country.”

Things had just been restored to peace and happiness—Clare had just proposed that they should go, that afternoon, to a Private View together—they might go and have tea with—

For an instant he was tempted to abandon Norah. Then his courage came:—

“Here's a note from Miss Monogue,” he said. “She's awfully ill I think, I ought—”

Clare's face hardened again. She got up from the table—

“Just as you please—” she said.

He climbed on to the omnibus that was to stumble with him down Piccadilly with a hideous, numbing sense of being under the hand of Fate. Why, at this moment, in all time, should this letter of Norah Monogue's have made its unhappy appearance? With what difficulty and sorrow had he and Clare reached once more a reconciliation only, so wantonly, to be plucked away from it again! From the top of his omnibus he looked down upon a sinister London. It was a heavy, lowering day; thick clouds like damp cloths came down upon the towers and chimneys. The trees in