“What made that scar on your mouth?” asked Dawes.
Paul put his hand hastily to his lips, and looked over the garden.
“I had a bicycle accident,” he said.
Dawes’ hand trembled as he moved the piece.
“You shouldn’t ha’ laughed at me,” he said very low.
“When?”
“That night on Woodborough Road, when you and her passed me—you with your hand on her shoulder.”
“I never laughed at you,” said Paul.
Dawes kept his fingers on the draught-piece.
“I never knew you were there till the very second when you passed,” said Morel.
“It was that as did me,” he said, very low.
Paul took another sweet.
“I never laughed,” he said, “except as I’m always laughing.”
They finished the game.
That night Morel walked home from Nottingham, in order to have something to do. The furnaces flared in a red blotch over Bulwell; the black clouds were like a low ceiling. As he went along the ten miles of highroad, he felt as if he were walking out of life, between the black levels of the sky and the earth. But at the end was only the sick-room. If he walked and walked for ever, there was only that place to come to.
He was not tired when he got near home, or he did not know it. Across the field he could see the red firelight leaping in her bedroom window.
“When she’s dead,” he said to himself, “that fire will go out.”
He took off his boots quietly and crept upstairs. His mother’s door was wide open, because she slept alone still. The red firelight dashed its glow on the landing. Soft as a shadow, he peeped in her doorway.
“Paul!” she murmured.
His heart seemed to break again. He went in and sat by the bed.
“How late you are!” she murmured.
“Not very,” he said.
“Why, what time is it?” The murmur came plaintive and helpless.
“It’s only just gone eleven.”
That was not true; it was nearly one o’clock.
