labyrinth of
life before her and no clue--to whom distrust in herself and her good
fortune has come as a sudden shock, like a rent across the path that
she was treading carelessly.

In spite of her healthy frame, her irreconcilable repugnance affected
her even physically; she felt a sort of numbness and could set about
nothing; the least urgency, even that she should take her meals, was an
irritation to her; the speech of others on any subject seemed
unreasonable, because it did not include her feeling and was an
ignorant claim on her. It was not in her nature to busy herself with
the fancies of suicide to which disappointed young people are prone:
what occupied and exasperated her was the sense that there was nothing
for her but to live in a way she hated. She avoided going to the
rectory again: it was too intolerable to have to look and talk as if
she were compliant; and she could not exert herself to show interest
about the furniture of that horrible cottage. Miss Merry was staying on
purpose to help, and such people as Jocosa liked that sort of thing.
Her mother had to make excuses for her not appearing, even when Anna
came to see her. For that calm which Gwendolen had promised herself to
maintain had changed into sick motivelessness: she thought, "I suppose
I shall begin to pretend by-and-by, but why should I do it now?"

Her mother watched her with silent distress; and, lapsing into the
habit of indulgent tenderness, she began to think what she imagined
that Gwendolen was thinking, and to wish that everything should give
way to the possibility of making her darling less miserable.

One day when she was in the black and yellow bedroom and her mother was
lingering there under the pretext of considering and arranging
Gwendolen's articles of dress, she suddenly roused herself to fetch the
casket which contained the ornaments.

"Mamma," she began, glancing over the upper layer, "I had forgotten
these things. Why didn't you remind me of them? Do see about getting
them sold. You will not mind about parting with them. You gave them all
to me long ago."

She lifted the upper tray and looked below.

"If we can do without them, darling, I would rather keep them for you,"
said Mrs. Davilow, seating herself beside Gwendolen with a feeling of
relief that she was beginning to talk about something. The usual
relation between them had become reversed. It was now the mother who
tried to cheer the daughter. "Why, how came yo