Instead of becoming less and less,
she was becoming more and more to him--experience strange and thrilling!
Out of deep misery she had grown happy--through him; out of a sordid,
shifting life recovered coherence and bloom, through devotion to him
him, of all people in the world! It was a miracle. She demanded nothing
of him, adored him, as no other woman ever had--it was this which had
anchored his drifting barque; this--and her truthful mild intelligence,
and that burning warmth of a woman, who, long treated by men as but a
sack of sex, now loves at last.
And suddenly, mastering his craving to get drunk, he made towards Soho.
He had been a fool to give those keys to Keith. She must have been
frightened by his visit; and, perhaps, doubly miserable since, knowing
nothing, imagining everything! Keith was sure to have terrified her.
Poor little thing!
Down the street where he had stolen in the dark with the dead body on
his back, he almost ran for the cover of her house. The door was opened
to him before he knocked, her arms were round his neck, her lips pressed
to his. The fire was out, as if she had been unable to remember to keep
warm. A stool had been drawn to the window, and there she had evidently
been sitting, like a bird in a cage, looking out into the grey street.
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