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.Once he had again reached his flat—it was taking him a long time to get used to saying “my flat” instead of “our flat”—and as the night drew on, he found himself chilled and troubled.He knew of a score of easy phrases to explain his vision; none convinced him.Nor had he any conviction of metaphysics into which, retaining its own nature, it might easily pass.He thought of tales of ghosts; he even tried to pronounce the word; but the word was silly.A ghost was a wraith, a shadow; his vision had been of an actual Lester.The rooms were cold and empty—as empty as any boarding-house rooms where the beloved has been and from which (never to return) she has gone.The afternoon with Jonathan had, when he left, renewed in him the tide of masculine friendship.But that tide had always swelled against the high cliff of another element, on which a burning beacon had once stood—and now suddenly had again stood.The sound of deep waves was in his ears, and even then his eyes had again been filled with the ancient fiery light.He had not, since he had first met Lester, lost at all the sense of great Leviathans, disputes and laughter, things native and natural to the male, but beyond them, and shining towards them had been that other less natural, and as it were more archangelic figure—remote however close, terrifying however sustaining, that which was his and not his, more intimate than all that was his, the shape of the woman and his wife.He had yet, for all his goodwill, so neglected her that he had been content to look at her so from his sea; he had never gone in and lived in that strange turret.He had admired, visited, used it.But not till this afternoon had he seen her as simply living.The noise of ocean faded; rhetoric ceased.This that he had seen had been in his actual house, and now it was not, and the house was cold and dark.He lit a fire to warm himself; he ate and drank; he went from room to room; he tried to read.But every book he opened thrust one message at him—from modern novels (“Aunt Rachel can’t live much longer——”) to old forgotten volumes (“The long habit of living indisposeth us for dying”; “But she is dead, she’s dead …”).His teeth chattered; his body shook.He went to bed and dozed and woke and walked and again lay down, and so on.Till that night he had not known how very nearly he had loved her.In the morning he made haste to leave.He was indeed on the point of doing so when Jonathan rang him up.Jonathan wanted to tell him about the Clerk’s visit and the Clerk’s approval of the painting.Richard did his best to pay attention and was a little arrested by the mere unexpectedness of the tale.He said, with a serious sympathy, “But that makes everything much simpler, doesn’t it? He’ll deal with Lady Wallingford, I suppose?”“Yes,” said Jonathan’s voice, “yes.If I want him to.I don’t believe I do want him to.”“But why not?” asked Richard.“Because … The fact is, I don’t like him.I don’t like the way he talks about Betty or the way he looks at paintings.You go and see him or hear him or whatever you can, and come on here and tell me.God knows I … well, never mind.I shall be here all day, unless Betty sends for me.”After this conversation, Richard was about to leave the flat when he paused and went back.He would not seem to run away; if, by any chance, that presence of his wife should again appear, he would not be without all he could accumulate from her environs with which to greet her.Nor would he now seem to fly.He walked through the rooms.He submitted to memory and in some poignant sense to a primitive remorse, for he was not yet spiritually old enough to repent.Then, quietly, he went out and (unable quite to control his uselessly expectant eyes) walked through the streets till he reached Holborn.It did not take him long to find the place of which he was in search.Behind Holborn, close to Great James Street, in a short street undamaged by the raids, were three buildings, one the largest, of a round shape, in the middle with a house on each side.They were not marked by any board, but as Richard came to the farther house, he saw that the door was open.A small exquisite carving of a hand, so delicate as to be almost a woman’s or a child’s hand, was fastened to the door-post, its fingers pointing into the house.Richard had never seen any carving that so nearly achieved the color of flesh; he thought at the first glance that it was flesh, and that a real dismembered hand pointed him to the Clerk’s lodging.He touched it cautiously with a finger as he went by and was a little ashamed of his relief when he found it was hard and artificial.He walked on as far as the end of the street; then he walked back.It was a warm sunny morning for October, and as he paced it seemed to him that the air was full of the scent of flowers.The noise of the streets had died away; it was very quiet.He thought, as he paused before turning, how pleasant it was here.It was even pleasant in a way not to have anyone in his mind, or on his mind.People who were in your mind were so often on your mind and that was a slight weariness.One would, of course, rather have it so than not.He had never grudged Lester anything, but here, where the air was so fresh and yet so full of a scent he just did not recognize, and London was as silent as the wood in Berkshire where he and Lester had been for a few days after their marriage, it was almost pleasant to be for a moment without Lester.His eyes averted themselves from where she was not lest she should unexpectedly be there
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