increased. The horrible feeling that there was truth in the warning harassed me. When Boyde came in an hour or so later, I pretended to be asleep. I told him nothing of my visitor, but through half-closed eyes I watched him as he moved about the room very quietly, lest he disturb my sleep. His delightful, kind expression, his frank blue eyes, the refinement and gentleness of his gestures, I noted them all for the hundredth time. His acts, too, I remembered; how he always shared his earnings, gave his help unstintingly, advice, a thousand hints, the value of his own sad and bitter experience. My heart ached a little. No, I reflected, it was certainly not Boyde who was the crook. My thoughts turned to Kay, who had just sent us half his salary. It was equally incredible. I wished I had treated my visitor differently. I wished I had kicked him out, instead of telling him to go. Sneak! A sneak with some evil motive into the bargain!
Things began to move now with a strange rapidity. It was as though someone who had been winding up machinery suddenly released the spring. Item by item, preparations had been completed--then, let her go! She went....
The weeks that followed seemed as many months. I was alone with Boyde in a filthy, verminous room, food and money scarce, rent owing, Kay away, clothes negligible, my single asset being a job. I lost that job owing to illness that kept me for weeks in bed--in that bed.... And as "she went" I had the curious feeling that someone watched her going, someone other than myself. It was an odd obsession. Someone looked on and smiled. Certain practices, gathered from my "Eastern" reading, were no doubt responsible for this uncanny feeling, for with it ran also a parallel idea: that only a portion of my being suffered while another portion, untouched, serene and confident, accepting all that came with a kind of indifferent resignation, stood entirely apart, playing, equally, the rôle of a spectator. This detached spectator
watched "her going" with close attention, even
