For that, he supposed, one must forget oneself. Why,
it was really even a worse case than that of Mr. Stone! And to Stephen
there was something awful in this thought.
The first small bird of morning, close to the open window, uttered
a feeble chirrup. Into Stephen's mind there leaped without reason
recollection of the morning after his first term at school, when,
awakened by the birds, he had started up and fished out from under his
pillow his catapult and the box of shot he had brought home and taken
to sleep with him. He seemed to see again those leaden shot with their
bluish sheen, and to feel them, round, and soft, and heavy, rolling
about his palm. He seemed to hear Hilary's surprised voice saying:
"Hallo, Stevie! you awake?"
No one had ever had a better brother than old Hilary. His only fault was
that he had always been too kind. It was his kindness that had done for
him, and made his married life a failure. He had never asserted himself
enough with that woman, his wife. Stephen turned over on his other
side. 'All this confounded business,' he thought, 'comes from
over-sympathising. That's what's the matter with Thyme, too.' Long he
lay thus, while the light grew stronger, listening to Cecilia's gentle
breathing, disturbed to his very marrow by these thoughts.
The first post brought no letter from Thyme, and the announcement soon
after, that Mr.
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