Page:Restless Earth.djvu/14

No good. A man could not continue to live like this. No real or regular meals, no order, no anything. Every bed in the house unmade and unaired. Dust everywhere.

Something would have to be done.

One o’clock, and he had not shaved! Two days’ growth, too—or was it three? Not a clean collar in the place! He couldn’t remember to get the things from the laundry now that Grace was not here to jog his memory. And the bulges in the knees of his trousers! Terrible! How many more clean shirts were left in the drawer? One, or two? Or none?

Something would have to be done—now that Grace would not be coming back.

Grace not coming back! Why the devil couldn’t he be pleased about it, instead of wanting to howl? Idiot! He didn’t know his own mind!

As he made his way to the bathroom he planned to boil a copperful of water that very evening and make a clean-up of all the crockery. Perhaps he might wash a few sheets and things, too. The obvious thing to do was to look round for diggings. No sense in keeping a whole house for himself. Better to let it, or sell it. The place was too full with memories. He could never work here again.

****

He dropped the letter into the post-box which hung upon a telegraph-pole at the corner of the street. He heard it fall, and for a moment, felt a violent desire to recall it.

“Don’t be a fool, Harley,” he admonished himself, and blushed as he realised that loneliness had bred a habit of speaking aloud to himself. He felt extremely foolish as he walked away, although he was alone in the street.

It was done. His decision was made irrevocably. He had chosen Patricia Weybourn and had discarded the little woman whom he had sworn to love and cherish and who was the mother of his child.

He was free to go to Patricia, free to take what