d up all the notes and dashed wrathfully out of the parlour.
Rachel followed quickly. He went to the back room, where the gas had
been left burning high, sprang on to a chair in front of the cupboard,
and deposited the notes on the top of the cupboard, in the very place
from which he had originally taken them.

"There!" he exclaimed, jumping down from the chair. The symbolism of
the action appeared to tranquillize him.

IV

For a moment Rachel, as a newly constituted housewife to whom every
square foot of furniture surface had its own peculiar importance, was
enraged to see Julian's heavy and dirty boots again on the seat of her
unprotected chair. But the sense of hurt passed like a spasm as her
eyes caught Julian's. They were alone together in the back room and
not far from each other. And in the man's eyes she no longer saw
the savage Julian, but an intensely suffering creature, a creature
martyrized by destiny. She saw the real Julian glancing out in torment
at the world through those eyes. The effect of the vibration in
Julian's voice a few minutes earlier was redoubled. Her emotion nearly
overcame her. She desired very much to succour Julian, and was aware
of a more distinct feeling of impatience against Louis.

She thought Julian had been magnificently heroic, and all his faults
of demeanour were counted to him for excellences. He had been a thief;
but the significance of the word "thief" was indeed completely altered
for her. She had hitherto envisaged thieves as rascals in handcuffs
bandied along the streets by policemen at the head of a procession of
urchins--dreadful rascals! But now a thief was just a young man like
other young men--only he had happened to see some bank-notes lying
about and had put them in his pocket and then had felt very sorry
for what he had done. There was no crime in what he had done ... was
there? She pictured Julian's pilgrimage through South Africa, all
alone. She pictured his existence at Knype, all alone; and his very
ferocity rendered him the more wistful and pathetic in her sight. She
was sure that his mother and sisters had never understood him; and she
did not think it quite proper on their part to have gone permanently
to America, leaving him solitary in England, as they had done. She
perceived that she herself was the one person in the world capable
of understanding Julian, the one person who could look after him,
influence him, keep him straight, civilize him, and im