LOVE AMONG THE WRECKAGE
481
begin again. I wonder what would have happened had I overtaken them in pursuit, breathless with running, uttering incoherent words, weeping, expostulatory? I came near to doing that.
There was nothing in earth or heaven to respect my curses or weeping. In the midst of it a man who had been trimming the opposite hedge appeared and stared at me.
Abruptly, ridiculously, I dissembled before him and went on and caught my train. . . .
But the pain I felt then I have felt a hundred times; it is with me as I write. It haunts this book, I see, that is what haunts this book, from end to end. . . .
