ll. He dissembled, and got quickly to bed. There he
sat, dressed, with his chin on his knees, staring out of the window at
the far hill, with its few lights. He neither thought nor slept, but sat
perfectly still, staring. And when at last he was so cold that he came
to himself, he found his watch had stopped at half-past two. It was
after three o'clock. He was exhausted, but still there was the torment
of knowing it was only Sunday morning. He went to bed and slept. Then he
cycled all day long, till he was fagged out. And he scarcely knew where
he had been. But the day after was Monday. He slept till four o'clock.
Then he lay and thought. He was coming nearer to himself--he could see
himself, real, somewhere in front. She would go a walk with him in the
afternoon. Afternoon! It seemed years ahead.

Slowly the hours crawled. His father got up; he heard him pottering
about. Then the miner set off to the pit, his heavy boots scraping the
yard. Cocks were still crowing. A cart went down the road. His mother
got up. She knocked the fire. Presently she called him softly. He
answered as if he were asleep. This shell of himself did well.

He was walking to the station--another mile! The train was near
Nottingham. Would it stop before the tunnels? But it did not matter; it
would get there before dinner-time. He was at Jordan's. She would
come in half an hour. At any rate, she would be near. He had done
the letters. She would be there. Perhaps she had not come. He ran
downstairs. Ah! he saw her through the glass door. Her shoulders
stooping a little to her work made him feel he could not go forward; he
could not stand. He went in. He was pale, nervous, awkward, and quite
cold. Would she misunderstand him? He could not write his real self with
this shell.

"And this afternoon," he struggled to say. "You will come?"

"I think so," she replied, murmuring.

He stood before her, unable to say a word. She hid her face from him.
Again came over him the feeling that he would lose consciousness. He set
his teeth and went upstairs. He had done everything correctly yet, and
he would do so. All the morning things seemed a long way off, as they
do to a man under chloroform. He himself seemed under a tight band
of constraint. Then there was his other self, in the distance, doing
things, entering stuff in a ledger, and he watched that far-off him
carefully to see he made no mistake.

But the ache and strain of it could not go on much long