in a new light--saw that he had but wished to prove
his love, not at all to affront her. This understanding quickly steadied
her nerves. She did not need now to forget what she had seen; and, not
needing to forget it--thus are our brains fashioned--she was able to
forget it.

But by removal of one load her soul was but bared for a more grievous
other. Her memory harked back to what had preceded the crisis. She
recalled those moments of doomed rapture in which her heart had soared
up to the apocalyptic window--recalled how, all the while she was
speaking to the man there, she had been chafed by the inadequacy of
language. Oh, how much more she had meant than she could express! Oh,
the ecstasy of that self-surrender! And the brevity of it! the sudden
odious awakening! Thrice in this Oxford she had been duped. Thrice all
that was fine and sweet in her had leapt forth, only to be scourged back
into hiding. Poor heart inhibited! She gazed about her. The stone alley
she had come into, the terrible shut gate, were for her a visible symbol
of the destiny she had to put up with. Wringing her hands, she hastened
along the way she had come. She vowed she would never again set foot in
Oxford. She wished herself out of the hateful little city to-night. She
even wished herself dead.

She deserved to suffer, you say? Maybe. I merely state that she did
suffer.

Emerging into Catherine Street, she knew whereabouts she was, and made
straight for Judas, turning away her eyes as she skirted the Broad, that
place of mocked hopes and shattered ideals.

Coming into Judas Street, she remembered the scene of yesterday--the
happy man with her, the noise of the vast happy crowd. She suffered in
a worse form what she had suffered in the gallery of the Hall. For
now--did I not say she was not without imagination?--her self-pity was
sharpened by remorse for the hundreds of homes robbed. She realised the
truth of what the poor Duke had once said to her: she was a danger in
the world... Aye, and all the more dire now. What if the youth of all
Europe were moved by Oxford's example? That was a horribly possible
thing. It must be reckoned with. It must be averted. She must not show
herself to men. She must find some hiding-place, and there abide. Were
this a hardship? she asked herself. Was she not sickened for ever of
men's homage? And was it not clear now that the absorbing need in her
soul, the need to love, would never--except for a brief while,