Wilkins less than the truth--and herself endorsed his wife's
statements that he was able to give them credence. He could not but
believe Mrs. Arbuthnot. She produced the precise effect on him that
she did on Tube officials. She hardly needed to say anything. But
that made no difference to her conscience, which knew and would not let
her forget that she had given him an incomplete impression. "Do you,"
asked her conscience, "see any real difference between an incomplete
impression and a completely stated lie? God sees none."
The remainder of March was a confused bad dream. Both Mrs.
Arbuthnot and Mrs. Wilkins were shattered; try as they would not to,
both felt extraordinarily guilty; and when on the morning of the 30th
they did finally get off there was no exhilaration about the departure,
no holiday feeling at all.
"We've been too good--much too good," Mrs. Wilkins kept on
murmuring as they walked up and down the platform at Victoria, having
arrived there an hour before they need have, "and that's why we feel as
though we're doing wrong. We're brow-beaten--we're not any longer real
human beings. Real human beings aren't ever as good as we've been.
Oh"--she clenched her thin hands--"to think that we ought to be so
happy now, here on the very station, actually starting, and we're not,
and it's being spoilt for us just simply because we've spoilt them!
What have we done--what have we done, I should like to know," she
inquired of Mrs.
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