long ache and a
weariness and exhaustion, because of his will fastened upon her,
as he lay there beside her, during the night.

She realized it all, and there came a momentous pause, a
pause in her swift running, a moment's suspension in her life,
when she was lost.

Then she turned fiercely on him, and fought him. He was not
to do this to her, it was monstrous. What horrible hold did he
want to have over her body? Why did he want to drag her down,
and kill her spirit? Why did he want to deny her spirit? Why did
he deny her spirituality, hold her for a body only? And was he
to claim her carcase?

Some vast, hideous darkness he seemed to represent to
her.

"What do you do to me?" she cried. "What beastly thing do you
do to me? You put a horrible pressure on my head, you don't let
me sleep, you don't let me live. Every moment of your life you
are doing something to me, something horrible, that destroys me.
There is something horrible in you, something dark and beastly
in your will. What do you want of me? What do you want to do to
me?"

All the blood in his body went black and powerful and
corrosive as he heard her. Black and blind with hatred of her he
was. He was in a very black hell, and could not escape.

He hated her for what she said. Did he not give her
everything, was she not everything to him? And the shame was a
bitter fire in him, that she was everything to him, that he had
nothing but her. And then that she should taunt him with it,
that he could not escape! The fire went black in his veins. For
try as he might, he could not escape. She was everything to him,
she was his life and his derivation. He depended on her. If she
were taken away, he would collapse as a house from which the
central pillar is removed.

And she hated him, because he depended on her so utterly. He
was horrible to her. She wanted to thrust him off, to set him
apart. It was horrible that he should cleave to her, so close,
so close, like leopard that had leapt on her, and fastened.

He went on from day to day in a blackness of rage and shame
and frustration. How he tortured himself, to be able to get away
from her. But he could not. She was as the rock on which he
stood, with deep, heaving water all round, and he was unable to
swim. He must take his stand on her, he must depend on
her.

What had he in life, save her? Nothing. The rest was a great
heaving flood. The terror of the night of heaving, overwhelming
flood, which w