Pacing, pacing, back and fro in the little room, for hour after hour, till his head whirled, and his legs ached.  Out of doors there was fitfully glinting sunshine upon the wet roofs; a pale blue now and then revealed amid the grey rack.  Two years ago he would have walked twenty miles on a day like this, with eyes for nothing but the beauty and joy of earth.  Was he not—­he suddenly asked himself —­a wiser man now than then?  Did he not see into the truth of things; whereas, formerly, he had seen only the deceptive surface?  There should be some solace in this reflection, if he took it well to heart.

Then his mind wandered away to Norbert Franks, who at this moment was somewhere enjoying himself.  This afternoon he might be calling upon the Crosses.  Why should that thought be disagreeable?  It was, as he perceived, not for the first time.  If he pictured the artist chatting side by side with Bertha Cross, something turned cold within him.  By the bye, it was rather a long time since he had seen Miss Cross; her mother had been doing the shopping lately.  She might come, perhaps, one day this week; the chance gave him something to look forward to.

How often had he called himself a fool for paying heed to Bertha Cross’s visits?

CHAPTER 25

Again came springtime, and, as he stood behind the counter, Warburton thought of all that was going on in the world he had forsaken.  Amusements for which he had never much cared haunted his fancy; feeling himself shut out from the life of grace and intellect, he suffered a sense of dishonour, as though his position resulted from some personal baseness, some crime.  He numbered the acquaintances he had dropped, and pictured them as mentioning his name—­if ever they did so—­with cold disapproval.  Godfrey Sherwood had ceased to write; it was six months since his last letter, in which he hinted a fear that the Irish enterprise would have to be abandoned for lack of capital.  Even Franks, good fellow as he was, seemed to grow lukewarm in friendship.  The painter had an appointment for a Sunday in May at Will’s lodgings, to smoke and talk, but on the evening before he sent a telegram excusing himself.  Vexed, humiliated, Warburton wasted the Sunday morning, and only after his midday meal yielded to the temptation of a brilliant sky, which called him forth.  Walking westward, with little heed to distance or direction, he presently found himself at Kew; on the bridge he lingered awhile, idly gazing at boats, and; as he thus leaned over the parapet, the sound of a voice behind him fell startlingly upon his ear.  He turned, just in time to catch a glimpse of the features which that voice had brought before his mind’s eye, Bertha Cross was passing, with her mother.  Probably they had not seen him.  And even if they had, if they had recognised him—­did he flatter himself that the Crosses would give any sign in public of knowing their grocer?