rried her into
the future, of which from time to time she had a mutilated glimpse. She
saw herself, in the distant years, still in the attitude of a woman who
had her life to live, and these intimations contradicted the spirit of
the present hour. It might be desirable to get quite away, really away,
further away than little grey-green England, but this privilege was
evidently to be denied her. Deep in her soul--deeper than any appetite
for renunciation--was the sense that life would be her business for a
long time to come. And at moments there was something inspiring, almost
enlivening, in the conviction. It was a proof of strength--it was a
proof she should some day be happy again. It couldn't be she was to live
only to suffer; she was still young, after all, and a great many things
might happen to her yet. To live only to suffer--only to feel the injury
of life repeated and enlarged--it seemed to her she was too valuable,
too capable, for that. Then she wondered if it were vain and stupid
to think so well of herself. When had it even been a guarantee to be
valuable? Wasn't all history full of the destruction of precious things?
Wasn't it much more probable that if one were fine one would suffer? It
involved then perhaps an admission that one had a certain grossness; but
Isabel recognised, as it passed before her eyes, the quick vague shadow
of a long future. She should never escape; she should last to the end.
Then the middle years wrapped her about again and the grey curtain of
her indifference closed her in.

Henrietta kissed her, as Henrietta usually kissed, as if she were afraid
she should be caught doing it; and then Isabel stood there in the crowd,
looking about her, looking for her servant. She asked nothing; she
wished to wait. She had a sudden perception that she should be helped.
She rejoiced Henrietta had come; there was something terrible in an
arrival in London. The dusky, smoky, far-arching vault of the station,
the strange, livid light, the dense, dark, pushing crowd, filled her
with a nervous fear and made her put her arm into her friend's. She
remembered she had once liked these things; they seemed part of a mighty
spectacle in which there was something that touched her. She remembered
how she walked away from Euston, in the winter dusk, in the crowded
streets, five years before. She could not have done that to-day, and the
incident came before her as the deed of another person.

"It's too beautiful