annihilation
by.

She exerted all her ordinary, warm self, she touched him, she
did him homage of loving awareness. And gradually he came back
to her, another man. She was soft and winning and caressing. She
was his servant, his adoring slave. And she restored the whole
shell of him. She restored the whole form and figure of him. But
the core was gone. His pride was bolstered up, his blood ran
once more in pride. But there was no core to him: as a distinct
male he had no core. His triumphant, flaming, overweening heart
of the intrinsic male would never beat again. He would be
subject now, reciprocal, never the indomitable thing with a core
of overweening, unabateable fire. She had abated that fire, she
had broken him.

But she caressed him. She would not have him remember what
had been. She would not remember herself.

"Kiss me, Anton, kiss me," she pleaded.

He kissed her, but she knew he could not touch her. His arms
were round her, but they had not got her. She could feel his
mouth upon her, but she was not at all compelled by it.

"Kiss me," she whispered, in acute distress, "kiss me."

And he kissed her as she bade him, but his heart was hollow.
She took his kisses, outwardly. But her soul was empty and
finished.

Looking away, she saw the delicate glint of oats dangling
from the side of the stack, in the moonlight, something proud
and royal, and quite impersonal. She had been proud with them,
where they were, she had been also. But in this temporary warm
world of the commonplace, she was a kind, good girl. She reached
out yearningly for goodness and affection. She wanted to be kind
and good.

They went home through the night that was all pale and
glowing around, with shadows and glimmerings and presences.
Distinctly, she saw the flowers in the hedge-bottoms, she saw
the thin, raked sheaves flung white upon the thorny hedge.

How beautiful, how beautiful it was! She thought with anguish
how wildly happy she was to-night, since he had kissed her. But
as he walked with his arm round her waist, she turned with a
great offering of herself to the night that glistened
tremendous, a magnificent godly moon white and candid as a
bridegroom, flowers silvery and transformed filling up the
shadows.

He kissed her again, under the yew trees at home, and she
left him. She ran from the intrusion of her parents at home, to
her bedroom, where, looking out on the moonlit country, she
stretched up her arms, hard, ha