The lovely night, yes, purple like Mrs. Mark's curtains
and scented oranges, chrysanthemums, boot-polish and candied sugar.--Oh
yes! how kind they had been--nice clergyman, fat a little, but young in
spite of his white hair, and Aunt Anne in bed under the crucifix
struggling and Mr. Crashaw smiling lustfully at Caroline ... The long
black streets, strips of silk and the lamps like fat buttons on a coat,
there was a cat! Hist! Hist! A streak of black against black ... and
the Chapel bell ringing and Thomas' fiery eyes ...

Behind all this confusion there was Martin, Martin, Martin. Creeping
nearer and nearer as though he were just behind her, or was it that she
was creeping nearer and nearer to him? She did not know, but her heart
now was beating so thickly that it was as though giants were wrapping
cloth after cloth round it, hot cloths, but their hands were icy cold.
No, she was simply excited, desperately, madly excited.

She had never been excited before, and now, with the excitement, there
was mingled the strangest hot pain and cold pity. She noticed that now
her knees were trembling and that if they trembled much more she would
not be able to walk at all.

"Now, Maggie, steady your knees!" she said to herself. But look, the
houses now were trembling a little too! Ridiculous those smart houses
with their fine doors and white steps to tremble! No, it was her heart,
not the houses ...

"Do I look queer?" she thought; "will people be looking at me?"

Ideas raced through her head, now like horses in the Derby.

"Woof! Poof! Off we go!" St. Dreot's, that square piece of grass on the
lawn with the light on it, her clothes, the socks that must be mended,
Caroline's silk and the rustle it made, shops, houses, rivers, seas,
death--yes, Aunt Anne's cancer ... and then, with a great upward surge
like rising from the depths of the sea after a dive, Martin! Martin,
Martin! ... For a moment then she had to pause. She had been walking
too fast. Her heart jumped, then ran a step or two, then fell into a
dead pause ... She went on, seeing now nothing but two lamps that
watched her like the eyes of a giant.

She was there! This was a Marble Arch! All by itself in the middle of
the road. She crossed to it, first went under it, then thought that he
would not see her there so came out and stood, nervously rubbing her
gloved hands against one another and turning her head, like a bird,
swiftly from side to side. She didn't like st