He had no right to tell her.
No matter, he would tell her, he would tell her this morning, and
having told her, he would go away.
He got up and paced to and fro again. He stood before the open window
till he had chilled himself through; then he came back and cowered
over the fire. A white thing lay by the hearth at his feet, it was
Lucia Harden's shawl, lying crumpled where he had thrown it. It was
the sign and symbol of her presence there. It was also the proof of
it.
How would she feel if she knew that he had been aware of it all the
time? The fact remained that she had risked his waking; there was
comfort for him in that. She had always been kind to him, and he had
never had even a momentary illusion as to the source and the nature of
her kindness. He had taken it, as he had taken her extreme courtesy,
for the measure of the distance that divided them. It showed her
secure in her detachment, her freedom from any intimate thought of
him, from any thought of him at all. But in this last act of kindness
it could hardly be that she had not taken him into consideration. She
could hardly have been pleased if she knew he had been awake, yet she
had risked his waking. Before she risked it she must have credited him
with something of her own simplicity of soul.
And this was how he had repaid her.
He saw her as she had knelt by him, mending the dying fire, as she had
stood looking at him, as she had stooped over him to cover him, and as
she had turned away; and he saw himself, sinning as he had sinned
against her in his heart.
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