She drew the door to.

"Don't shut it, Gwenda."

It was as if he said, "Don't let's stand together out here like this
any longer."

She opened the door again, leaning a little toward it across the
threshold with her hand on the latch.

She smiled, raising her chin in the distant gesture that was their
signal of withdrawal.

But Steven did not go.

* * * * *

"May I come in?" he said.

Something in her said, "Don't let him come in." But she did not heed
it. The voice was thin and small and utterly insignificant, as if
one little brain cell had waked up and started speaking on its own
account. And something seized on her tongue and made it say "Yes," and
the full tide of her blood surged into her throat and choked it, and
neither the one voice nor the other seemed to be her own.

He followed her into the little dining-room where the lamp was. The
Vicar was in bed. The whole house was still.

Rowcliffe looked at her in the lamplight.

"We've walked a bit too far," he said.

He made her lean back on the couch. He put a pillow at her head and a
footstool at her feet.

"Just rest," he said, and she rested.

But Rowcliffe did not rest. He moved uneasily about the room.

A sudden tiredness came over her.

She thought, "Yes. We walked too far." She leaned her head back on
the cushion. Her thin arms lay stretched out on either side of her,
supported by the couch.

Rowcliffe ceased to wander. He drew up with his back against the
chimney-piece, where he faced her.

"Close your eyes," he said.

She did not close them. But the tired lids drooped. The lifted bow of
her mouth drooped. The small, sharp-pointed breasts drooped.

And as he watched her he remembered how he had quarreled with her in
that room last night. And the thought of his brutality was intolerable
to him.

His heart ached with tenderness, and his tenderness was intolerable
too.

The small white face with its suffering eyes and drooping eyelids, the
drooping breasts, the thin white arms slackened along the couch, the
childlike helplessness of the tired body moved him with a vehement
desire. And his strength that had withstood her in her swift, defiant
beauty melted away.

"Steven--"

"Don't speak," he said.

She was quiet for a moment.

"But I want to, Steven. I want to say something."

He sighed.

"Well--say it."

"It's something I want to ask you."

"Don't ask impossibilities."

"I don't th