Finally Richards
got up and strode aimlessly about the room, ploughing his hands through
his hair, much as a somnambulist might do who was having a bad dream.
Then he seemed to arrive at a definite purpose; and without a word he put
on his hat and passed quickly out of the house. His wife sat brooding,
with a drawn face, and did not seem to be aware that she was alone. Now
and then she murmured, "Lead us not into t . . . but--but--we are so
poor, so poor! . . . Lead us not into . . . Ah, who would be hurt by
it?--and no one would ever know . . . Lead us. . . ." The voice died out
in mumblings. After a little she glanced up and muttered in a
half-frightened, half-glad way--
"He is gone! But, oh dear, he may be too late--too late . . . Maybe
not--maybe there is still time." She rose and stood thinking, nervously
clasping and unclasping her hands. A slight shudder shook her frame, and
she said, out of a dry throat, "God forgive me--it's awful to think such
things--but . . . Lord, how we are made--how strangely we are made!"
She turned the light low, and slipped stealthily over and knelt down by
the sack and felt of its ridgy sides with her hands, and fondled them
lovingly; and there was a gloating light in her poor old eyes.
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