thrust it angrily away, endeavouring to concentrate his
attention on his music open before him. For a time, he believed he had
succeeded. Then, the idea was unexpectedly present to him again, and
this time more forcibly than before; it came like a sharp, swift stab
of remembrance, and forced an exclamation over his lips. Discouraged,
he let his hands drop from the keys of the piano; for now he knew that
he would probably never be rid of it again. This was always the way
with unpleasant thoughts and impressions: if they returned, after he
had resolved to have done with them, they were henceforth part and
parcel of himself, fixed ideas, against which his will was powerless.

In the hope of growing used to the haunting reflection, and to the
unhappiness it implied, he thought it through to the end--this strange,
unsought knowledge, which had lain unsuspected in him, and now became
articulate. Once considered, however, it made many things clear. He
could even account to himself now, for the blasphemous suggestions that
had plagued him not twenty-four hours ago. If he had then not, all
unconsciously, had the feeling that Louise had known too long and too
well what love was, to be willing to live without it, such thoughts as
those would never have risen in him.

In vain he asked himself, why he should only now understand these
things. He could find no answer. Throughout the time he had known
Louise, he had been better acquainted with her mode of life than anyone
else: her past had lain open to him; she had concealed nothing, had
been what she called "brutally frank" with him. And he had protested,
and honestly believed, that what had preceded their intimacy did not
matter to him. Who could foresee that, on a certain day, an idea of
this kind would break out in him--like a canker? But this query took
him a step further. Was it not deluding himself to say break out? Had
not this shadow lurked in their love from the very beginning? Had it
not formed an invisible barrier between them? It was possible no, it
was true; though he only recognised its truth at the present time. It
had existed from the first: something which each of them, in turn, had
felt, and vaguely tried to express. It had little or nothing to do with
the fact that they had defied convention. That, regrettable though it
might be, was beside the mark. The confounding truth was, that, in an
emotional crisis of an intensity of the one they had come through, it
was i