Ishmael watched as long as the cart was in sight, taking pride and comfort in the fact that his eyes could see the minutest detail as far as the turn on to the high-road; then he came back into the room, and with a smile and a sigh took up the accounts.  Some absurd little thing within him made him determine that he would not take to spectacles till Nicky had gone to Canada and could not remark on them.

CHAPTER II

AUTUMN

A few evenings later Ishmael went out alone on to the moors, filled with very different ideas from any that had held him of late.  Not the petty friction of domesticity, nor the pervading thought of that queer feeling in his eyes, nor care for Nicky’s future, or anything of the present, stirred within him.  A letter received by Georgie that day, and the thought and realisation of which Ishmael had carried about with him through all his varied work, now swamped his mind in memories so vivid that the present was only in his mind as a faint bitter flavour hardly to be noticed.

Judy had written to Georgie, had written to say she was coming down some time soon, but primarily the letter had been to give news of Killigrew.  Ishmael and Georgie knew—­exactly how they could not have told—­in what relationship Judith and Killigrew had stood to each other; Ishmael felt he had known ever since that evening when he met Judy in Paradise Lane, and to Georgie the certainty had come with greater knowledge of life and realisation of herself.  They had hardly mentioned the affair to each other, and then only in a round-about manner, but each guessed at the other’s knowledge.  Georgie was aware that for some years now Judith had seen very little of Killigrew, but how or why the severance had come about neither she nor Ishmael could guess.  Judith had never mentioned Killigrew to them except as a mutual friend; she always had the strength of her own sins.  Never till this letter had she spoken or written otherwise, but now she told that Killigrew was very ill in Paris and that she had gone to him.  Very ill was practically all she said, beyond a mere mention that the illness was typhoid; but Ishmael knew at once what she meant, though she either would not or could not write it.  Through all Georgie’s comments and hopes that soon better news would come he never doubted, though he said little, that Killigrew was dying, if not already dead, when Judith wrote.  He knew her well enough, and guessed at her still more acutely, to know that she was quite capable of so much of reticence.  And why did she speak so confidently of coming down to Cloom some time quite soon?  She would not leave Paris while Joe was still unwell....  Ishmael knew, with the sureness he had once or twice before known things in his life, and the knowledge affected him strangely.  He felt no violent grief, but a great blank.  He had not seen Killigrew for years; but with the knowledge that he was to see him no more went something of himself—­something that had belonged to Killigrew alone and that had responded to something in him which henceforth would be sealed and dead.  He kept himself busy all day, but now he walked fast along the road, only accompanied by his thoughts.