He
heard it again now. It came from the heart of the black trees that lined
the moonlit road, a whisper, a thread of sound that accompanied him,
pervaded him, threatened him. The scaly beast knew that another victim was
about to be born--another woman was to undergo torture, so that when the
day came and the scaly beast rose from its sleep then there would be one
more to be devoured.
He, Peter, was to have a child. He had longed for a child ever since he
could remember. He had always loved children--other people's children--but
to have one of his own!... To have something that was his and Clare's and
theirs alone, to have its love, to feel that it depended Upon them both, to
watch it, to tend it--Life could have no gift like that.
But now the child was hidden from him. He thought of nothing but Clare,
of her suffering and terror, of her waiting there so helplessly for the
dreadful moment of supreme pain. The love that he had now for Clare was
something more tender, more devoted, than he had ever felt for any human
being. His mind flew back fiercely to that night of his first quarrel when
she had told him. Now he was to be punished for his heartlessness and
cruelty ... by her loss.
His agony and terror grew as he paced beneath the dark and bending trees.
He sat down on a seat, at the other end of which was a little man with
a bowler hat, spectacles and his coat collar turned up.
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