To-morrow | Page 8

she might have been here now,
with no more than one day more to wait. "You are not an impatient
woman, my dear."
"I've no patience with you sometimes," she would say.
If he still advertised for his son he did not offer rewards for information
any more; for, with the muddled lucidity of a mental derangement he
had reasoned himself into a conviction as clear as day- light that he had
already attained all that could be expected in that way. What more
could he want? Colebrook was the place, and there was no need to ask
for more. Miss Carvil praised him for his good sense, and he was
soothed by the part she took in his hope, which had become his
delusion; in that idea which blinded his mind to truth and probabil- ity,
just as the other old man in the other cottage had been made blind, by
another disease, to the light and beauty of the world.
But anything he could interpret as a doubt-- any coldness of assent, or
even a simple inattention to the development of his projects of a home
with his returned son and his son's wife--would irritate him into flings
and jerks and wicked side glances. He would dash his spade into the
ground and walk to and fro before it. Miss Bessie called it his tan-
trums. She shook her finger at him. Then, when she came out again,
after he had parted with her in anger, he would watch out of the corner

of his eyes for the least sign of encouragement to ap- proach the iron
railings and resume his fatherly and patronising relations.
For all their intimacy, which had lasted some years now, they had never
talked without a fence or a railing between them. He described to her
all the splendours accumulated for the setting-up of their housekeeping,
but had never invited her to an inspection. No human eye was to behold
them till Harry had his first look. In fact, nobody had ever been inside
his cottage; he did his own housework, and he guarded his son's
privilege so jealously that the small objects of domestic use he bought
some- times in the town were smuggled rapidly across the front garden
under his canvas coat. Then, coming out, he would remark
apologetically, "It was only a small kettle, my dear."
And, if not too tired with her drudgery, or wor- ried beyond endurance
by her father, she would laugh at him with a blush, and say: "That's all
right, Captain Hagberd; I am not impatient."
"Well, my dear, you haven't long to wait now," he would answer with a
sudden bashfulness, and looking uneasily, as though he had suspected
that there was something wrong somewhere.
Every Monday she paid him his rent over the railings. He clutched the
shillings greedily. He grudged every penny he had to spend on his
main- tenance, and when he left her to make his purchases his bearing
changed as soon as he got into the street. Away from the sanction of her
pity, he felt himself exposed without defence. He brushed the walls
with his shoulder. He mistrusted the queer- ness of the people; yet, by
then, even the town children had left off calling after him, and the
tradesmen served him without a word. The slight- est allusion to his
clothing had the power to puzzle and frighten especially, as if it were
something utterly unwarranted and incomprehensible.
In the autumn, the driving rain drummed on his sailcloth suit saturated
almost to the stiffness of sheet-iron, with its surface flowing with water.
When the weather was too bad, he retreated under the tiny porch, and,
standing close against the door, looked at his spade left planted in the
middle of the yard. The ground was so much dug up all over, that as the

season advanced it turned to a quagmire. When it froze hard, he was
disconso- late. What would Harry say? And as he could not have so
much of Bessie's company at that time of the year, the roars of old
Carvil, that came muf- fled through the closed windows, calling her in-
doors, exasperated him greatly.
"Why don't that extravagant fellow get you a servant?" he asked
impatiently one mild after- noon. She had thrown something over her
head to run out for a while.
"I don't know," said the pale Bessie, wearily, staring away with her
heavy-lidded, grey, and un- expectant glance. There were always
smudgy shadows under her eyes, and she did not seem able to see any
change or any end to her life.
"You wait till you get married, my dear," said her only friend, drawing
closer to the fence. "Harry will get you one."
His hopeful craze seemed to mock