“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Leighton. “Stephen’s only being with friends. Mr. Elliot, sir, don’t break down. Nothing’s happened bad. No one’s died yet, or even hurt themselves.” Ever kind, he took hold of Rickie’s arm, and, pitying such a nervous fellow, set out with him for home. The shoulders of Orion rose behind them over the topmost boughs of the elm. From the bridge the whole constellation was visible, and Rickie said, “May God receive me and pardon me for trusting the earth.” “But, Mr. Elliot, what have you done that’s wrong?” “Gone bankrupt, Leighton, for the second time. Pretended again that people were real. May God have mercy on me!” Leighton dropped his arm. Though he did not understand, a chill of disgust passed over him, and he said, “I will go back to The Antelope. I will help them put Stephen to bed.” “Do. I will wait for you here.” Then he leant against the parapet and prayed passionately, for he knew that the conventions would claim him soon. God was beyond them, but ah, how far beyond, and to be reached after what degradation! At the end of this childish detour his wife awaited him, not less surely because she was only his wife in name. He was too weak. Books and friends were not enough. Little by little she would claim him and corrupt him and make him what he had been; and the woman he loved would die out, in drunkenness, in debauchery, and her strength would be dissipated by a man, her beauty defiled in a man. She would not continue. That mystic rose and the face it illumined meant nothing. The stream—he was above it now—meant nothing, though it burst from the pure turf and ran for ever to the sea. The bather, the shoulders of Orion—they all meant nothing, and were going nowhere. The whole affair was a ridiculous dream. Leighton returned, saying, “Haven’t you seen Stephen? They say he followed us: he can still walk: I told you he wasn’t so bad.” “I don’t think he passed me. Ought one to look?” He wandered a little along the Roman road. Again nothing mattered. At the level-crossing he leant on the gate to watch a slow goods train pass. In the glare of the engine he saw that his brother had come this way, perhaps through some sodden memory of the Rings, and now lay drunk over the rails. Wearily he did a man’s duty. There was time to raise him up and push him into safety. It is also a man’s duty to save his own life, and therefore he tried. The train went over his knees. He died up in Cadover, whispering, “You have been right,” to Mrs. Failing. She wrote of him to Mrs. Lewin afterwards as “one who has failed in all he undertook; one of the thousands whose dust returns to the dust, accomplishing nothing in the interval. Agnes and I buried him to the sound of our cracked bell, and pretended that he had once been alive. The other, who was always honest, kept away.” XXXV