Toward dusk every evening external things became more real, and his hold on life tightening, he suffered more acutely in each hour that passed. Night after night he went back to Hadleigh Wood. It was the wood of despair, the focal point of all his pain, and he was drawn to it irresistibly through the gathering darkness.
On the second evening he found it difficult to get away. Mavis stopped him, asked him some domestic question, and then began to talk about a new suit of clothes for their boy. He was alive again now, emerged from his somnambulistic state, and he gave full attention to this matter of Billy's new serge suit; nevertheless, all at once she apologized for troubling him, and inquired if he had anything on his mind.
"No, Mav, of course not."
"Are you sure, Will? Do tell me if you've something worrying you."
"What should I have to worry me?" and he put his arm round her ample waist, and gave her an affectionate squeeze.
"The hay's all right, isn't it?"
"Yes, everything is all right.... You can't do better than you've suggested about Billy. Take him with you to Manninglea--and, look here, if Mr. Jones can't fit him properly out of stock, let him make the suit to measure. Don't consider the extra expense. We can afford it."
"Thank you, Will." Mavis was delighted. "You've told me to do the very thing I wanted to do; but of course I'd never have done it without your authority. I've been longing to see the little chap in clothes regularly cut out and finished for him, and nobody else."
Going through the yard Dale was stopped by his men. The foreman wanted directions for to-morrow's work; the carter asked for three new tires; the stableman regretted to be compelled to report that one of the horses had broken his manger rack.
As he finally came out on the road, Dale was thinking, "Soon now I shall be gone, but everything here will be just the same. They will all of them find that they can do very well without me: the men, the children, Mavis--yes, even Norah. Mavis will be the one who will grieve for me. Norah will suffer most, but it will be only for a little while. She'll take another sweetheart--a real sweetheart this time, and she'll marry, and give birth to babies; and it will be to her as if I had died a hundred years ago, as if I had never lived at all, as if I'd been somebody she'd read of in a story-book, or somebody she'd dreamed about in one of those silly nasty sort of dreams which young girls can't help having, but are ashamed to remember and always try to forget."