He dropped the note and looked quietly round.Now he knew what he missed.It was the little ornamental clock, which was hers.
It had gone from the mantelpiece.He went into the front room, his bedroom, the parlour, lighting the gas as he went.From the chiffonier had gone the knick-knacks of silver and plate.From the table-top, the lace coverings.He opened the wardrobe--no clothes of hers.He opened the drawers--nothing of hers.Her trunk was gone from its accustomed place.Back in his own room hung his old clothes, just as he had left them.Nothing else was gone.
He stepped into the parlour and stood for a few moments looking vacantly at the floor.The silence grew oppressive.The little flat seemed wonderfully deserted.He wholly forgot that he was hungry, that it was only dinner-time.It seemed later in the night.
Suddenly, he found that the money was still in his hands.There were twenty dollars in all, as she had said.Now he walked back, leaving the lights ablaze, and feeling as if the flat were empty.
"I'll get out of this," he said to himself.
Then the sheer loneliness of his situation rushed upon him in full.
"Left me!" he muttered, and repeated, "left me!"
The place that had been so comfortable, where he had spent so many days of warmth, was now a memory.Something colder and chillier confronted him.He sank down in his chair, resting his chin in his hand--mere sensation, without thought, holding him.
Then something like a bereaved affection and self-pity swept over him.
"She needn't have gone away," he said."I'd have got something."
He sat a long while without rocking, and added quite clearly, out loud:
"I tried, didn't I?"
At midnight he was still rocking, staring at the floor.