Explore "The House by the River" by A.P. Herbert on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
John Egerton came home very weary that evening; and all the way home things went wrong as they had gone wrong on a certain evening in June when he had come home tired to find the Byrnes' maid on the doorstep, and told the first lie about the sack. Tonight again the trains went wrong, and they were stuffy and packed, difficult to enter and difficult to leave and abominable to be in. It was one of the exceptionally hateful journeys which men remember as they remember battles. It was of a piece with that night in June, and John thought of them together as he walked home, hot and jumpy with irritation. Nothing had gone right since that night -- nothing. He had lost his love, and his good name, and his peace of mind -- and his best friend. He had had faith in Stephen then; he had admired and loved -- had almost idolized him. Tonight he felt that he hated Stephen. Not a word from him -- not one word of encouragement or gratitude in all this filthy business of the articles. Not that he wanted Stephen to do anything -- oh no! He had made his vow and he would stick to it. But it did hurt that Stephen should take this sacrifice so much as a matter of course, should do nothing to help him in this new storm of suspicion. He had been a good friend once -- a jolly, companionable friend, openhearted and full of laughter -- the best friend a lonely bachelor could have. Well, it was done with now. He had lost that as he had lost everything else. And it had all begun with that lie. Perhaps it was a judgment. Perhaps there was never a virtuous lie.
He had bought at Charing Cross the October number of The Argus, because he had seen on the cover the name of Stephen Byrne, and he read everything that Stephen wrote. After dinner he sat down and read "The Death in the Wood. " And at first he read, as Margery had read, only with admiration, though it was now a jealous, almost reluctant admiration. He thought, "How can a mean swine like Stephen create such glorious high-minded stuff? " It was unnatural, wrong.