It
happened sometimes when he was sitting with his friends Mr. and Mrs.
Eagles; in that case he would make some kind of excuse. The couple
suspected that his business would take him to the public-house, but
John never came back with a sign about him of having drunk; of that
failing he had broken himself. He went cautiously down the atone
stairs, averting his face if anyone met him; then by cross-ways he
reached Gray's Inn Road, and so westwards.
He had a well-ordered home, and his children were about him, but
these things did not compensate him for the greatest loss his life
had suffered. The children, in truth, had no very strong hold upon
his affections. Sometimes, when Amy sat and talked to him, he showed
a growing nervousness, an impatience, and at length turned away from
her as if to occupy himself in some manner. The voice was not that
which had ever power to soothe him when it spoke playfully. Memory
brought back the tones which had been so dear to him, and at times
something more than memory; he seemed really to hear them, as if
from a distance. And then it was that he went out to wander in the
streets.
Of Bob in the meantime he saw scarcely anything.
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