Page 626 - sons-and-lovers

CHAPTER XV

DERELICT

CLARA went with her husband to Sheffield, and Paul
scarcely saw her again. Walter Morel seemed to have let all
the trouble go over him, and there he was, crawling about
on the mud of it, just the same. There was scarcely any bond
between father and son, save that each felt he must not let
the other go in any actual want. As there was no one to keep
on the home, and as they could neither of them bear the
emptiness of the house, Paul took lodgings in Nottingham,
and Morel went to live with a friendly family in Bestwood.
Everything seemed to have gone smash for the young
man. He could not paint. The picture he finished on the day
of his mother’s death—one that satisfied him—was the last
thing he did. At work there was no Clara. When he came
home he could not take up his brushes again. There was
nothing left.
So he was always in the town at one place or another,
drinking, knocking about with the men he knew. It really
wearied him. He talked to barmaids, to almost any woman,
but there was that dark, strained look in his eyes, as if he
were hunting something.