Page 672 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

tation of good humour, and held out his hand. ‘Well, shake
hands, parson. You’ll have to take care of Mrs. Frere on the
voyage, and we may as well make up our differences before
you start. Shake hands.’
‘Let me pass, sir!’ cried North, with heightened colour;
and ignoring the proffered hand, strode savagely on.
‘You’ve a d—d fine temper for a parson,’ said Frere to
himself. ‘However, if you won’t, you won’t. Hang me if I’ll
ask you again.’ Nor, when he reached home, did he fare bet-
ter in his efforts at reconciliation with his wife. Sylvia met
him with the icy front of a woman whose pride has been
wounded too deeply for tears.
‘Say no more about it,’ she said. ‘I am going to my father.
If you want to explain your conduct, explain it to him.’
‘Come, Sylvia,’ he urged; ‘I was a brute, I know. Forgive
me.’
‘It is useless to ask me,’ she said; ‘I cannot. I have forgiven
you so much during the last seven years.’
He attempted to embrace her, but she withdrew herself
loathingly from his arms. He swore a great oath at her, and,
too obstinate to argue farther, sulked. Blunt, coming in
about some ship matters, the pair drank rum. Sylvia went
to her room and occupied herself with some minor details
of clothes-packing (it is wonderful how women find relief
from thoughts in household care), while North, poor fool,
seeing from his window the light in hers, sat staring at it,
alternately cursing and praying. In the meantime, the un-
conscious cause of all of this—Rufus Dawes—sat in his
new cell, wondering at the chance which had procured him

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