r affairs and getting a permit to
return to South Africa. The excitements of purchase and preparation were
as good an anodyne as she could have taken. The perils of the sea were
at full just then, and the prospect of danger gave her a sort of
pleasure. 'If I go down,' she thought, 'all the better; brisk, instead
of long and dreary.' But when she had the permit and her cabin was
booked, the irrevocability of her step came to her with full force.
Should she see him again or no? Her boat started in three days, and she
must decide. If in compunction he were to be affectionate, she knew she
would never keep to her decision, and then the horror would begin again,
till again she was forced to this same action. She let the hours go and
go till the very day before, when the ache to see him and the dread of it
had become so unbearable that she could not keep quiet. Late that
afternoon--everything, to the last label, ready--she went out, still
undecided. An itch to turn the dagger in her wound, to know what had
become of Noel, took her to Edward's house. Almost unconsciously she had
put on her prettiest frock, and spent an hour before the glass. A
feverishness of soul, more than of body, which had hung about her ever
since that night, gave her colour. She looked her prettiest; and she
bought a gardenia at a shop in Baker Street and fastened it in her dress.
Reaching the old Square, she was astonished to see a board up with the
words: "To let," though the house still looked inhabited. She rang, and
was shown into the drawing-room. She had only twice been in this house
before; and for some reason, perhaps because of her own unhappiness, the
old, rather shabby room struck her as pathetic, as if inhabited by the
past. 'I wonder what his wife was like,' she thought: And then she saw,
hanging against a strip of black velvet on the wall, that faded colour
sketch of the slender young woman leaning forward, with her hands crossed
in her lap. The colouring was lavender and old ivory, with faint touches
of rose. The eyes, so living, were a little like Gratian's; the whole
face delicate, eager, good. 'Yes,' she thought, 'he must have loved you
very much. To say good-bye must have been hard.' She was still standing
before it when Pierson came in.

"That's a dear face, Edward. I've come to say good-bye. I'm leaving for
South Africa to-morrow." And, as her hand touched his, she thought: 'I
must have been mad to think I could