The Devil

But his lassitude increased. He uttered no further hints about it to anybody; he endeavored to conceal it; he refused to admit its extent even to himself. On certain days to think made him weary, to be active and bustling was an impossibility. Instinct seemed to whisper that he was passing through still another phase, that presently he would be all right again--just as vigorous and energetic as in the past; and that meanwhile he should not flog and spur himself, but just rest patiently until all his force returned to him.

Since to do anything was a severe effort, he had better do nothing. He ceased to bother about Billy's schooling. He postponed making his harvest arrangements; he forgot to answer a letter asking for an estimate, and one Thursday he omitted to wind the clocks. He tried to let his beard grow, in order to escape the trouble of shaving. It grew during three days; but the effect was so disfiguring--a stiff stubble of gray, hiding his fine strong chin, and spreading high on his bronzed cheeks--that Norah and Mavis implored him to desist. Even Ethel the housemaid ventured to say how very glad she felt when he shaved again.

The month of May was hot and enervating; the month of June was wet and depressing. Day after day the rain beat threateningly against the windows, and night after night it dripped with a melancholy patter from the eaves. On three successive Sundays Dale considered the rain an adequate excuse for not going to chapel. He and Norah had a very short informal service within sound and within smell of the roast beef that was being cooked close by in the kitchen, and afterward he meditatively read the Bible to himself while Norah laid the cloth for dinner.

He had said that he did not want to fold his hands and sit quiet for the remainder of his existence; but that was precisely what he desired to do for the moment. He allowed Norah to relieve him of more and more of his office duties, and he idly watched her as she stood bending her neck over the tall desk or sat stooping her back and squaring her elbows at the writing-table. And still sitting himself, he would maintain long desultory conversations with her about nothing in particular when, having completed the tasks that he had entrusted to her, she moved here and there about the office tidying up for the night.

Thus on an evening toward the end of June he talked to her about love and the married state. It had been raining all day long, and though no rain fell at the moment, one felt that more was coming. The air was saturated with moisture; heavy odors of sodden vegetation crept through the open window; and one saw a mist like steam beginning to rise from the fields beyond the roadway. Mr. Furnival, the new pastor, had just passed by; and it was his appearance that started the conversation.