than she into the
labyrinth of the wedded state, and struggled through some of
its thorniest passages; and yet both, one consciously, the other
half-unaware, testified to the mysterious fact which was already dawning
on her: that the influence of a marriage begun in mutual understanding
is too deep not to reassert itself even in the moment of flight and
denial.

"The real reason is that you're not Nick" was what she would have said
to Strefford if she had dared to set down the bare truth; and she knew
that, whatever she wrote, he was too acute not to read that into it.

"He'll think it's because I'm still in love with Nick... and perhaps I
am. But even if I were, the difference doesn't seem to lie there, after
all, but deeper, in things we've shared that seem to be meant to outlast
love, or to change it into something different." If she could have
hoped to make Strefford understand that, the letter would have been easy
enough to write--but she knew just at what point his imagination would
fail, in what obvious and superficial inferences it would rest.

"Poor Streff--poor me!" she thought as she sealed the letter.

After she had despatched it a sense of blankness descended on her. She
had succeeded in driving from her mind all vain hesitations, doubts,
returns upon herself: her healthy system naturally rejected them. But
they left a queer emptiness in which her thoughts rattled about as
thoughts might, she supposed, in the first moments after death--before
one got used to it. To get used to being dead: that seemed to be her
immediate business. And she felt such a novice at it--felt so horribly
alive! How had those others learned to do without living? Nelson--well,
he was still in the throes; and probably never would understand, or
be able to communicate, the lesson when he had mastered it. But Grace
Fulmer--she suddenly remembered that Grace was in Paris, and set forth
to find her.

XXIV

NICK LANSING had walked out a long way into the Campagna. His hours were
seldom his own, for both Mr. and Mrs. Hicks were becoming more and more
addicted to sudden and somewhat imperious demands upon his time; but on
this occasion he had simply slipped away after luncheon, and taking the
tram to the Porta Salaria, had wandered on thence in the direction of
the Ponte Nomentano.

He wanted to get away and think; but now that he had done it the
business proved as unfruitful as everything he had put his hand to since
he had