she had now reason to be that she
had not yielded to his persuasions, and married him! No, she had never
seriously considered the idea, even at the height of her folly. But
then, she was never quite sure of herself; there was always a chance
that some blind impulse would spring up in her and overthrow her
resolutions. Now, he must suffer, too--and rightly. For, after all, he
had also been to blame. If only he had not importuned her so
persistently, if only he had let her alone, nothing of this would have
happened, and there would be no reason for her to lie and taunt
herself. But, in his silent, obstinate way, he had given her no peace;
and you could not--she could not!--go on living unmoved, at the side of
a person who was crazy with love for you.

For two nights, she slept little. On the third, worn out, she fell,
soon after midnight, into a deep sleep, from which, the following
morning, she wakened refreshed.

When Maurice came, about half-past twelve, her eyes followed him with a
new curiosity, as he drew up a chair and sat down at her bedside. She
wondered what he would say when he knew, and what change would come
over his face. But she made no beginning to enlightening him. In his
presence, she was seized by an ungovernable desire to be distracted, to
be taken out of herself. Also, it was not, she began to grasp, a case
of stating a simple fact, in simple words; it meant all the
circumstantiality of complicated explanation; it meant a still more
murderous tearing up of emotion. And besides this, there was another
factor to be reckoned with, and that was the peculiar mood he was in.
For, as soon as he entered the room, she felt that he was different
from what he had been the day before.

She heard the irritation in his voice, as he tried to persuade her to
come out to dinner with him. In fancy she saw it all: saw them walking
together to the restaurant, at a brisk pace, in order to waste none of
his valuable time; saw dinner taken quickly, for the same reason; saw
them parting again at the house-door; then herself in the room alone,
straying from sofa to window and back again, through the long hours of
the long afternoon. A kind of mental nausea seized her at the thought
that the old round was to begin afresh. She brought no answer over her
lips. And after waiting some time in vain for her to speak, Maurice
rose, and, still under the influence of his illhumour, drew up the
three blinds, and opened a window. A c