What had she seen beyond
the candle flames? It is the unexpected which invests visions with
poignancy. Nothing more strange could Keith have seen in this nest of
the murky and illicit. But in sheer panic lest he might be caught thus
spying he drew back and hurried on. So Larry was living there with her!
When the moment came he could still find him.
Before going in, he stood full five minutes leaning on the terrace
parapet before his house, gazing at the star-frosted sky, and the
river cut by the trees into black pools, oiled over by gleams from
the Embankment lamps. And, deep down, behind his mere thoughts, he
ached-somehow, somewhere ached. Beyond the cage of all that he saw and
heard and thought, he had perceived something he could not reach. But
the night was cold, the bells silent, for it had struck twelve. Entering
his house, he stole upstairs.
VII
If for Keith those six weeks before the Glove Lane murder trial came on
were fraught with uneasiness and gloom, they were for Laurence almost
the happiest since his youth. From the moment when he left his rooms
and went to the girl's to live, a kind of peace and exaltation took
possession of him.
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