The feeling of complete helplessness, of desertion, of being alone
in mid-ocean without a sail or a star in sight, mounted and swept over him.
Susanna had been his sail, his star, although he had never fully realized it,
and he had cut himself adrift from her pure, steadfast love, blinding himself
with cheap and vulgar charms.
The next train to Farnham was not due for an hour. His steps faltered; he
turned into a clump of trees by the wayside and flung himself on the ground to
cry like a child, he who had not shed a tear since he was a boy of ten. If
Susanna could have seen that often longed-for burst of despair and remorse,
that sudden recognition of his sins against himself and her, that gush of
penitent tears, her heart might have softened once again; a flicker of flame
might have lighted the ashes of her dying love; she might have taken his head
on her shoulder, and said, "Never mind, John! Let's forget, and begin all over
again!"
Matters did not look any brighter for John the next week, for his senior
partner, Joel Atterbury, requested him to withdraw from the firm as soon as
matters could be legally arranged. He was told that he had not been doing, nor
earning, his share; that his way of living during the year just past had not
been any credit to "the concern," and that he, Atterbury, sympathized too
heartily with Mrs.
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