hat things would go wrong if she
remained inside. In his gratitude, and in the boyish exultation with
which success filled him, he had collected all the roses, and wantonly
pulled them to pieces. Red petals fell like flakes of red snow; and,
crushed and bruised, the fragile leaves had yielded a scent, tenfold
increased.

While it lasted, the vision was painfully intense: on returning to
herself, she was obliged to look round and think where she was. The
lamp burned steadily; the dull room was just as she had left it. With a
cry, she buried her face in the cushions again, and held her hands to
her ears.

More, more, and more again! She was as hungry for these memories as a
child for dainties. She was starved for them. And now, dead to the
present, she relived the past happy hours of triumph and excitement,
not one of which had hung heavy, in each of which her craving for
sensation had been stilled. She saw herself as she had then been,
proud, secure, unspeakably content. Forgotten words rang in her ears,
words of love and of anger, words that were like ointment and like
knives. Then, not a day had been empty or tedious; life was always
highly coloured, and there was neither pleasure nor pain that she had
not tasted to the full. Even the suffering she had gone through, for
his sake, was no longer hateful to her. Anything--anything rather than
this dead level of monotony on which she had fallen.

When, finally, she raised her head, she might, for all she knew, have
been absent for days. Things had lost their familiar aspect; she had
once more lived right through the great experience of her life. Putting
her hands to her forehead, she tried to force her thoughts back to
reality. Then, stiffly, she rose from her knees. In doing so, she
touched the roses. With a gesture that was her real awakening, she
caught them up and pressed them to her face. It was a satisfaction to
her that fingers and cheeks were pricked by their thorns. She was
conscious of wishing to hurt herself. With her lips on the cool buds,
she stammered broken words: "Maurice--my poor Maurice!" and kissed the
flowers, feeling as if, in some occult way, he would be aware of her
kisses, of the love she was thus expending on him.

For, in a sudden revulsion of feeling, she was sensible of a great
compassion for him; and with each pressure of her lips to the roses,
she implored his forgiveness for her unpremeditated desertion. She
called to mind his tenderness