He saw instead the wide Picardy flats, a group of poplars,
a distant wood, and in front a certain hollow strewn with dead and
dying men--one figure, in front of the rest, lying face downwards.
The queer twisted forms, the blasted trees, the inexorable
horror--the whole vision swept over him again, as it had done in the
schoolroom. His nerves shrank and trembled under it.
Beryl--poor little Beryl! What a wretch he had been to propose to
her--in a moment of moral and physical weakness, when it had seemed
a simple thing to accept her affection and to pledge his own! But if
she stood by him, he must stand by her. And he had had the kindest
letter from Sir Henry, and some sweet tremulous words from her.
Suppose she offered to release him? His heart leapt guiltily at the
thought. What, indeed, had a man so haunted and paralysed to give to
a girl like Beryl? It was an outrage--it ought to cease.
But as to his father, that was simple enough.
The Squire and his eldest son retreated to the library after dinner,
and all the rest of the party waited uneasily to see what would
happen.
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