So they give themselves up--just go get a bit o' quiet. And that
is what I shall do, if this goes on much longer. I'd sooner be turned
off short and sharp with a broken neck than die of exhaustion in a
padded cell."
Then suddenly chance gave the hateful money an immense value,
converted it into a means of escape from the outer life whose monotony
and narrowness were assisting the cruelly wide inner life to drive him
mad.
He went to Vine-Pits, and the strangeness of his surroundings, the
difficulties, the hard work, produced a salutary effect upon him; but
most of all he drew strength and courage from the renewal of love
between Mavis and himself. That was most wonderful--like a new birth,
rather than a reanimation. They loved each other as a freshly married
couple, as a boy and girl who have just returned from their
honeymoon, and who say, "We shall feel just the same when the time
comes to keep our silver wedding."
So he toiled comfortably, almost happily. Mavis was perfectly happy,
and he found increasing solace in the knowledge of this fact.
Thence onward his busy days were free from fear, except for the
transient panics which, as he surmised, he would be subject to for the
remainder of his life.
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