He had, indeed, meant to go to the doctor, but now that must be postponed. The meeting with Collier, his chief at the Home Office, was his only gulp of freedom. At the hotel Kitty waited, and his heart smote him when he found her sitting just as he had left her, mute, white, smiling and enduring. She hadn't even been to her dressmaker's or done any shopping as she had promised him to do. "I know I am absurd;--I know you think me, silly;--but I can't--I can't do anything--think anything--but you!" she said, her lips trembling.
"Absurd, darling, indeed!" he answered, "as if you couldn't think of me and order a new dress at the same time! You know I told you I wanted to see you in a pale blue lawn--isn't lawn the pretty stuff?--And what of the hat? You do want one?--Come, let us go out and I'll help you to choose it."
But she did not want to go out; she only wanted to sit near him, lean her head against him, have him make up to her for the hours of loneliness. He knew that night at the play that she hardly heard a word, and that when once or twice, he was lured from his absorption and made to laugh, really forgetting, really amused, his laughter hurt her. She gazed at the stage with wide, vacant eyes. He felt the strain of being in town with this desperate devotion beside him worse than the strain of being shut up with it in the country; for there Kitty need hide and repress nothing, and his danger of hurting her by forgetfulness was not so great. He was like a prisoner led about by his gaoler, manacles on his wrists and ankles and a yoke on his neck; there was a certain relief in going back to prison where, at all events, one wasn't so tormented by the sights and sounds of freedom, nor so conscious of chains and the watchful eye upon one.
"This is the end," he thought, as, in the train, they sat side by side, holding hands and very silent, but that, from time to time, when their eyes met, she would smile her doting, hungry smile and murmur: "Darling."
After this, the prison again; the high walls and stifling sweetness of Paradise, and then, thank goodness, release.
How strange a contrast to the journey a month ago, when, stunned, shot through, he had only felt the bliss of home-coming, the longing for the nest. It was all nest now; there was no space for the fear of death. He was shut in, smothered by this panting breast of love.