"Conrad, Joseph - Tomorrow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Conrad Joseph)

thing was being prepared likewise for to-morrow.
There was a boxful of packets of various flower-
seeds to choose from, for the front garden. "He
will doubtless let you have your say about that, my
dear," Captain Hagberd intimated to her across
the railing.

Miss Bessie's head remained bowed over her
work. She had heard all this so many times. But
now and then she would rise, lay down her sewing,
and come slowly to the fence. There was a charm
in these gentle ravings. He was determined that
his son should not go away again for the want of a
home all ready for him. He had been filling the
other cottage with all sorts of furniture. She im-
agined it all new, fresh with varnish, piled up as
in a warehouse. There would be tables wrapped
up in sacking; rolls of carpets thick and vertical
like fragments of columns, the gleam of white mar-
ble tops in the dimness of the drawn blinds. Cap-
tain Hagberd always described his purchases to
her, carefully, as to a person having a legitimate
interest in them. The overgrown yard of his cot-
tage could be laid over with concrete . . . after
to-morrow.

"We may just as well do away with the fence.
You could have your drying-line out, quite clear of
your flowers." He winked, and she would blush
faintly.

This madness that had entered her life through
the kind impulses of her heart had reasonable de-
tails. What if some day his son returned? But
she could not even be quite sure that he ever had a
son; and if he existed anywhere he had been too
long away. When Captain Hagberd got excited
in his talk she would steady him by a pretence of
belief, laughing a little to salve her conscience.

Only once she had tried pityingly to throw some
doubt on that hope doomed to disappointment, but
the effect of her attempt had scared her very much.
All at once over that man's face there came an ex-
pression of horror and incredulity, as though he
had seen a crack open out in the firmament.

"You--you--you don't think he's drowned!"

For a moment he seemed to her ready to go out