s flat
back.

He stood there thus till his back was quite warm. Adela was rather slow
in coming. But he did not mind that. It was happiness for him to be in
her house, among her things, the sofas and chairs she used, the carpet
her feet pressed every day, the books she read, the flowers she had
chosen. This house was his idea of a home who had never had a home
because of her.

Meanwhile upstairs, in a big bedroom just overhead, Lady Sellingworth
was having a battle with herself of which her friend was totally
unconscious. She did not come down at once because she wanted definitely
and finally to finish that battle before she saw again the man by the
fire. But something said to her: "Don't decide till you have seen him
again. Look at him once more and then decide." She walked softly up and
down the room after Murgatroyd had told her who was waiting for her, and
she felt gnawed by apprehension. She knew her fate was in the balance.
All day she had been trying to decide what she was going to do. All day
she had been saying to herself: "Now, this moment, I will decide, and
once the decision is made there shall be no going back from it." It was
within her power to come to a decision and to stick to it; or, if it
were not within her power, then she was not a sane but an insane woman.
She knew herself sane. Yet the decision was not arrived at when Sir
Seymour rang the bell. Now he was waiting in the room underneath and the
matter must be settled. An effort of will, the descent of a flight of
stairs, a sentence spoken, and her life would be made fast to an anchor
which would hold. And for her there would be no more drifting upon
dangerous seas at the mercy of tempests.

"Look at him once more and then decide."

The voice persisted within her monotonously. But what an absurd
injunction that was. She knew Seymour by heart, knew every feature of
him, every expression of his keen, observant, but affectionate eyes, the
way he held himself, the shapes of his strong, rather broad hands--the
hands of a fine horseman and first-rate whip--every trick of him,
every attitude. Why look at him, her old familiar friend, again before
deciding what she was now going to do?

"Look at him as the man who is going to be your husband!"

But that was surely a deceiving insidious voice, suggesting to her
weakness, uncertainty, hesitation, further mental torment and further
debate. And she was afraid of it.

She stood still near the window. Sh