"
Her action set them all talking again as if they had never stopped, and
Mr. Pepper finished the move with his Knight.
"There was nothing to be done," said St. John. He spoke very slowly. "It
seems impossible--"
He drew his hand across his eyes as if some dream came between him and
the others and prevented him from seeing where he was.
"And that poor fellow," said Mrs. Thornbury, the tears falling again
down her cheeks.
"Impossible," St. John repeated.
"Did he have the consolation of knowing--?" Mrs. Thornbury began very
tentatively.
But St. John made no reply. He lay back in his chair, half-seeing the
others, half-hearing what they said. He was terribly tired, and the
light and warmth, the movements of the hands, and the soft communicative
voices soothed him; they gave him a strange sense of quiet and relief.
As he sat there, motionless, this feeling of relief became a feeling
of profound happiness. Without any sense of disloyalty to Terence and
Rachel he ceased to think about either of them. The movements and the
voices seemed to draw together from different parts of the room, and to
combine themselves into a pattern before his eyes; he was content to sit
silently watching the pattern build itself up, looking at what he hardly
saw.
The game was really a good one, and Mr. Pepper and Mr. Elliot were
becoming more and more set upon the struggle.
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