And Naomi would be back before nightfall. God was giving him no
time: it was unfair to hustle a man in this way. In the whirl of his
thoughts he seemed to hear Naomi's footfall drawing nearer and nearer
home. He could almost upbraid the Almighty here for leaving him and
Naomi childless. A child would have made the temptation irresistible.
"I wish a'most that I'd never called, if it puts you out so terrible,"
was the wanderer's plaintive remark after two minutes of silent
waiting.
This sentence settled it. The temptation _was_ irresistible. Geake
unlocked the skivet, plunged a hand in and banged down a fistful of
notes on the table.
"Here," said he; "here's five-an'-twenty pound'. You shall have it all
if you'll go straight out o' this door an' back to America."
IV.
Half-an-hour later, William Geake was standing by his garden-gate
again. Every now and then he glanced down the road towards St.
Austell, and after each glance resumed his nervous picking at the
blister of green paint that had troubled him earlier in the day. He
was face to face with a new and smaller, but sufficiently vexing,
difficulty.
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