At any rate, it prevented one from going down
to the tomb with a lie tacit on the lips. He was very ill, very
weak, very intimidated. And he was very solitary and driven in on
himself--not so much because Rachel had gone to sleep as because
neither Rachel nor anybody else would believe that he was really
dying. His spirit was absorbed in the gravest preoccupations that can
trouble a man. His need of sympathy and succour was desperate. Thus he
had wakened Rachel. At first she had been as sympathetic and consoling
as he could desire. She had held his hand and sat on the bed. The
momentary relief was wonderful. And he had been encouraged to confess.
He had prodded himself on to confession by the thought that Rachel
must have known of his guilt all along--otherwise she would never have
told that senseless lie about the scullery door being open. Hence his
confession could not surprise her. She would receive it in the right,
loving, wifely attitude, telling him that he was making too much of
a little, that it was splendid of him to confess, and generally
exonerating and rehabilitating him.
Then he had begun to confess. The horrible change in her tone as he
came to the point had unnerved him.
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