Brandon shut his study door and looked about him. The lamp on his table
was lit, his study had a warm and pleasant air with the books gleaming in
their shelves and the fire crackling. (You needed a fire on these late
summer evenings.) Nevertheless, although the room looked comfortable, he
did not at once move into it. He stood there beside the door, as though he
was waiting for something. He listened. The house was intensely quiet. He
opened the door and looked into the passage. There was no one there. The
gas hissed ever so slightly, like a whispering importunate voice. He came
back into his room, closing the door very carefully behind him, went
across softly to his writing-table, sat down, and took up his pen. His
eyes were fixed on the door, and then suddenly he would jerk round in his
chair as though he expected to catch some one who was standing just behind
him.
Then began that fight that always now must be waged whenever he sat down
at his desk, the fight to drive his thoughts, like sheep, into the only
pen that they must occupy. He must think now only of one thing; there were
others--pictures, ideas, memories, fears, horrors even--crowding, hovering
close about him, and afterwards--after Pybus--he would attend to them.
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