Orientations Part 29

If you'd asked it, I believe she'd have gone up to six quid a week,'

said George.

XV

Daisy walked down the High Street slowly, looking at the houses she remembered, and her lips quivered a little; at every step smells blew across to her full of memories--the smell of a tannery, the blood smell of a butcher's shop, the sea-odour from a shop of fishermen's clothes.... At last she came on to the beach, and in the darkening November day she looked at the booths she knew so well, the boats drawn up for the winter, whose names she knew, whose owners she had known from her childhood; she noticed the new villas built in her absence. And she looked at the grey sea; a sob burst from her; but she was very strong, and at once she recovered herself. She turned back and slowly walked up the High Street again to the station. The lamps were lighted now, and the street looked as it had looked in her memory through the years; between the 'Green Dragon' and the 'Duke of Kent' were the same groups of men--farmers, townsfolk, fishermen--talking in the glare of the rival inns, and they stared at her curiously as she pa.s.sed, a tall figure, closely veiled. She looked at the well-remembered shops, the stationery shop with its old-fas.h.i.+oned, fly-blown knick-knacks, the milliner's with cheap, gaudy hats, the little tailor's with his antiquated fas.h.i.+on plates. At last she came to the station, and sat in the waiting-room, her heart full of infinite sadness--the terrible sadness of the past....

And she could not shake it off in the train; she could only just keep back the tears.

At Victoria she took a cab and finally reached home. The servants said her husband was in his study.

'Hulloa!' he said. 'I didn't expect you to-night.'

'I couldn't stay; it was awful.' Then she went up to him and looked into his eyes. 'You do love me, Herbert, don't you?' she said, her voice suddenly breaking. 'I want your love so badly.'

'I love you with all my heart!' he said, putting his arms round her.

But she could restrain herself no longer; the strong arms seemed to take away the rest of her strength, and she burst into tears.

'I will try and be a good wife to you, Herbert,' she said, as he kissed them away.

THE END