Book Two Chapter 10 Morton Sends a Telegram

But he had done neither of these things. He had camped in the town, he had sought her, and in this seeking lay something more than chance. His second meeting was an acknowledgment of his youth and her beauty. She had held him in the village day by day, because she was lithe of body and fair of face and because her eyes were unaccountably wistful. Yes, he had sought her that night when the river sang with joyous, immemorial clamor, and the lamp beckoned like a hand. He had gone to her for diversion--that he now acknowledged--and he had grown each day more deeply concerned with her life and its burdens.

And now here she was at his door, more dangerously enthralling than ever, involved in a snare of most intricate pattern, calling upon him through some hidden affinity of their natures as no woman had ever called him before--calling so powerfully, so insistently, that to save her from her peril, as pressing as it was intangible, seemed the one and only task at his hand.

In this mood, sustained by the memory of her anguished face, he sent a telegram to Lambert, urging him to come at once to the relief of his wife and daughter.

He did not appreciate the full force of this act until he left the office and resumed his walk homeward. Then, like a shock from a battery, came the realisation. "I have now definitely intervened; but how weakly, how ingloriously!"