she felt as if it were true, as if she had allowed
Artois to take her life in his hands and to shape it according to his
will, as if he had been governing her although she had not known it. He
had been the dominant personality in their mutual friendship. His had
been the calling voice, hers the obedient voice that answered. Only once
had she risen to a strong act, an act that brought great change with it,
and that he had been hostile to. That was when she had married Maurice.

And she had left Maurice for Artois. From Africa had come the calling,
dominant voice. And even in her Garden of Paradise she had heard it. And
even from her Garden of Paradise she had obeyed it. For the first time
she saw that act of renunciation as the average man or woman would
probably see it; as an extraordinary, quixotic act, to be wondered at
blankly, or, perhaps, to be almost angrily condemned. She stood
away from her own impulsive, enthusiastic nature, and stared at it
critically--as even her friends had often stared--and realized that it
was unusual, perhaps extravagant, perhaps sometimes preposterous. This
readiness to sacrifice--was it not rather slavish than regally
loyal? This forgetfulness of personal joy, this burnt-offering of
personality--was it not contemptible? Could such actions bring into
being the respect of others, the respect of any man? Had Emile respected
her for rushing to Africa? Or had he, perhaps, then and through all
these years, simply wondered how she could have done such a thing?

And Maurice--Maurice? Oh, what had he thought? How had he looked upon
that action?

Often and often in lonely hours she had longed to go down into the
grave, or to go up into the blue, to drag the body, the soul, the heart
she loved back to her. She had been rent by a desire that had made her
limbs shudder, or that had flushed her whole body with red, and set her
temples beating. The longing of heart and flesh had been so vehement
that it had seemed to her as if they must compel, or cease to be.
Now, again, she desired to compel Maurice to come to her from his far,
distant place, but in order that she might make him understand what he
had perhaps died misunderstanding; why she had left him to go to Artois,
exactly how she had felt, how desperately sad to abandon the Garden of
Paradise, how torn by fear lest the perfect days were forever at an end,
how intensely desirous to take him with her. Perhaps he had felt cruelly
jealous! Perha