'
The slate colour of the sky did not seem to change, and yet the night grew
visibly denser in the park; and there had come the sensation of things
ended, a movement of wraps thrown over shoulders and thought of bedtime and
home. The crowd was moving away, and nearly lost in the darkness Hubert
came towards his friends. He had just knocked the ash from his cigar, and
as he drew in the smoke the glow of the lighted end fled over his blonde
face.
XIV
One day a short letter came from Hubert, asking Mrs. Bentley to send the
dog-cart to the station to fetch him. He had decided to come home at once,
and postpone the production of his play till the coming spring.
Every rehearsal had revealed new and serious faults of construction. These
he had attempted to remove when he went home in the evening, but though he
often worked till daybreak, he did not achieve much. The very knowledge
that he must come to rehearsal with the re-written scene seemed to produce
in him a sort of mental paralysis, and, striking the table with his fist,
he would get up, and a thought would cross his mind of how he might escape
from this torture. After one terrible night, in which he feared his brain
was really giving way, he went down to the theatre and dismissed the
company, for he had resolved to return to Ashwood and spend another autumn
and another winter re-writing _The Gipsy_.
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