Would his father let him go? Was he, after all his
struggles, to give way and ruin Maggie's position and future? Could
he be sure, if he look her away with him, that then he would keep
straight, and that his old temptations of women and drink and
general restlessness would be conquered? Perhaps. There had never
been a surer proof that his love for Maggie was a real and unselfish
love than his hesitation on that wretched day when he seemed utterly
deserted by mankind, when Maggie seemed the only friend he had in
the world.
Everything was just out of reach, and some perverse destiny
prevented him from realising any desire that had a spark of honesty
and decency in it. It was not wonderful that in the midst of his
loneliness and unhappiness he should have been tempted back to the
old paths again, men, women, places that for more than three months
now he had been struggling to abandon.
All that day he struggled with temptation. He had not seen Maggie
for a week, and during the last three days he had not heard from
her, the adventurous Jane having defied the aunts and left.
At luncheon he asked about his father, whom he had not seen for two
days.
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