He drove slowly because he wanted to think. He wanted to stand away from his interview with Nicholas and get it in focus. At present it was so much out of focus as to appear monstrous. The one horrible word “thief” stood out like a deformity thrust right into the lens of the camera; he could see nothing clearly for it, and whenever he looked at it he felt the same old sickness. “Thief”; “prison”—words like these had no reasonable connection with oneself, with one’s family, with the women of one’s family. That they should be brought into relation with them was monstrous. He drove in clear, pale sunlight between hedges where the hawthorn blossom hung like a heavy fall of snow. The sky overhead was the pale, pure blue that speaks of clean air and a freshening breeze. There were clouds coming up out of the north-east—clouds like blown feathers, as white as the thorn blossom. When he had run ten miles, John had himself in hand. He went over all that Nicholas had said to him, and all that he had said to Nicholas.
