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g. Sigh after sigh passed along its streets to break against dripping walls. The school, the houses were hidden, and all civilization seemed in abeyance. Only the simplest sounds, the simplest desires emerged. They agreed that this weather was strange after such a sunset.
"That's a collie," said Stephen, listening.
"I wish you'd have some breakfast before starting."
"No food, thanks. But you know" He paused. "It's all been a muddle, and I've no objection to your coming along with me."
The cloud descended lower.
"Come with me as a man," said Stephen, already out in the mist. "Not as a brother; who cares what people did years back? We're alive together, and the rest is cant. Here am I, Rickie, and there are you, a fair wreck. They've no use for you here,--never had any, if the truth was known,--and they've only made you beastly. This house, so to speak, has the rot. It's common-sense that you should come."
"Stephen, wait a minute. What do you mean?"
"Wait's what we won't do," said Stephen at the gate.
"I must ask--"
He did wait for a minute, and sobs were heard, faint, hopeless, vindictive. Then he trudged away, and Rickie soon lost his colour and his form. But a voice persisted, saying, "Come, I do mean it. Come; I will take care of you, I can manage you."
The words were kind; yet it was not for their sake that Rickie plunged into the impalpable cloud. In the voice he had found a surer guarantee. Habits and sex may change with the new generation, features may alter with the play of a private passion, but a voice is apart from these. It lies nearer to the racial essence and perhaps to the divine; it can, at all events, overleap one grave.
XXXII
Mr. Pembroke did not receive a clear account of what had happened when he returned for the interval. His sister--he told her frankly--was concealing something from him. She could make no reply. Had she gone mad, she wondered. Hitherto she had pretended to love her husband. Why choose suc
