But he had other thoughts more urgent than surprise.
In the five days of banishment just lived through, the need
for a readjustment of his position with regard to her had come
to him forcibly. The memory of the night when weakness and he
had been at perilously close quarters had returned to him
persistently and uncomfortably, spoiling the remembrance of
his triumph. It had been well enough to smother the thought
of that night in days of work. But had the ignoring of it
blotted out the weakness? Had it not rather thrown it into
bolder relief? A man strong in his own strength does not turn
his back upon temptation; he faces and quells it. In the
solitary days in Clifford's Inn, in the solitary night-hours
spent in tramping the city streets, this had been the
conviction that had recurred again and again, this the problem
to which, after much consideration, he had found a solution
--satisfactory at least to himself. When next Chilcote called
him--It was notable that he had used the word "when" and not
"if.
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