"I
can see her doing it," he told himself--"cheerfully telling Margaret
that it didn't matter and all the time planning this in the back of
her head. Here all of these years she has been leading a life of her
own. The secret longings, the desires and the old human hunger for
love and happiness and expression have been going on under her placid
exterior as they have under my own."
McGregor thought of the busy days behind him and realised with shame
how little Edith had seen of him. It was in the days when his big
movement of The Marching Men was just coming into the light and on the
night before he had been in a conference of labour men who had wanted
him to make a public demonstration of the power he had secretly been
building up. Every day his office was filled with newspaper men who
asked questions and demanded explanations. And in the meantime Edith
had been selling her shop to that woman and getting ready to
disappear.
In the railroad station McGregor found Edith sitting in a corner with
her face buried in the crook of her arm. Gone was the placid exterior.
Her shoulders seemed narrower. Her hand, hanging over the back of the
seat in front of her, was white and lifeless.
McGregor said nothing but snatched up the brown leather bag that sat
beside her on the floor and taking her by the arm led her up a flight
of stone steps to the street.
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