than her personal self.

Turning away, he passed between the seats to the door of the coach, and
a minute later she saw his figure hurrying back along the platform down
which they had come together a few minutes ago.

CHAPTER VI

THE FUTURE

A chill rain was falling when Virginia got out of the train the next
morning, and the raw-boned nags hitched to the ancient "hacks" in the
street appeared even more dejected and forlorn than she had remembered
them. Then one of the noisy negro drivers seized her bag, and a little
later she was rolling up the long hill in the direction of her home.
Dinwiddie was the same; nothing had altered there since she had left
it--and yet what a difference! The same shops were unclosing their
shutters; the same crippled negro beggar was taking his place at the
corner of the market; the same maids were sweeping the sidewalks with
the same brooms; the same clerk bowed to her from the drug store where
she bought her medicines; and yet something--the only thing which had
ever interested her in these people and this place--had passed out of
them. Just as in New York yesterday, when she had watched the sunrise,
so it seemed to her now that the spirit of reality had faded out of the
world. What remained was merely a mirage in which phantoms in the guise
of persons made a pretence of being alive.

The front door of her house stood open, and on the porch one of the
coloured maids was beating the dust out of the straw mat. "As if dust
makes any difference when one is dead," Virginia thought wearily; and
an unutterable loathing passed over her for all the little acts by which
one rendered tribute to the tyranny of appearances. Then, as she entered
the house, she felt that the sight of the familiar objects she had once
loved oppressed her as though the spirit of melancholy resided in the
pieces of furniture, not in her soul. This weariness, so much worse than
positive pain, filled her with disgust for all the associations and the
sentiments she had known in the past. Not only the house and the
furniture and the small details of housekeeping, but the street and the
town and every friendly face of a neighbour, had become an intolerable
reminder that she was still alive.

In her room, where a bright fire was burning, and letters from the girls
lay on the table, she sat down in her wraps and gazed with unseeing eyes
at the flames. "The children must not know. I must keep it from the
children as