He never spoke to Gerald of April now. There had been a time in the early days of their friendship when he had confided in him, under an oath of secrecy, that he hoped to marry her as soon as his position permitted. And Gerald had agreed with him that it was a fine thing to marry young, “and it’s the right thing for you,” he added; “some fellows are meant for marriage and others aren’t. I think you’re one of the ones that are.” A cryptic statement that Roland had, at the time, called in question, but Gerald only laughed. “I may be wrong,” he had said, “one never knows, but I don’t think I am.” Often afterwards he had asked Roland about April and whether they were still in love with each other as much as ever, and Roland, his vanity flattered by the inquiry, had assured him of their constancy. But of late, when Gerald had made some light reference to “the fair April,” Roland had changed the conversation, or, if a question were asked, had answered it obliquely, or managed to evade it, so that Gerald had realized that the subject was no longer agreeable to him, and, being blessed with an absence of curiosity, had dropped it from his repertoire of pleasantries. But he did not connect April with his friend’s despondency.
The summer was nearly over, however, before the crisis came. It was on a Friday evening in the beginning of September, and Roland was sitting with his mother, as was usual with them, for a short talk after his father had gone to bed. He could tell that something was worrying her. Her conversation had been disjointed and many of her remarks irrelevant. And suddenly his instinct warned him that she was going to speak to him about April. He went suddenly still. If someone had thrown a stone at him at that moment he would have been unable to move out of the way of it. He could recollect distinctly, to the end of his life, everything that had passed through his mind during that minute of terrifying silence that lay between his realization of what was coming and the first sound of that opening sentence.
“Roland, dear, I hope you won’t mind my mentioning it, but your father and I have been talking together about you and April.”
He could remember everything: the shout of a newsboy in the street--“Murder in Tufnell Park!” the slight rustle of the curtain against the window-sill; the click of his mother’s knitting needles. And, till that moment, he had never noticed that the pattern of the carpet was irregular, that on the left side there were seven roses and five poppies and on the right six roses and six poppies. They had had that carpet for twenty years and he had never noticed it before. His eyes were riveted on this curious deformity, while through the window came the shriek of the newsboy--“Murder in Tufnell Park!” Then his mother’s voice broke the tension. The moment had come; he gathered his strength to him. As he had walked five years earlier with unflinching head, up the hill to Carus Evans, so now he answered his mother with an even voice: