Two images pursued him--of Kitty writing the book, while he was away
electioneering or toiling at his new office--and then, of his returns to
Haggart--tired or triumphant--on many a winter evening, of her glad rush
into his arms, her sparkling face on his breast.
Or again, he conjured up the scene when the MS. had been shown to
Darrell--his pretence of disapproval, his sham warnings, and the smile
on his sallow face as he walked off with it. Ashe looked back to the
early days of his friendship with Darrell, when he, Ashe, was one of the
leaders at Eton, popular with the masters in spite of his incorrigible
idleness, and popular with the boys because of his bodily prowess, and
Darrell had been a small, sickly, bullied colleger. Scene after scene
recurred to him, from their later relations at Oxford also. There was a
kind of deliberation in the way in which he forced his thoughts into
this channel; it made an outlet for a fierce bitterness of spirit, which
some imperious instinct forbade him to spend on Kitty.
He dozed in the later hours of the night, and was roused by something
touching his hand, which lay outside the bedclothes.
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