nes, and followed her through the fields at evening, till one
evening he made her turn and follow her heart and him. And so Maggie went
on her predestined way.

For after him there was the gentleman who came to Madame Ponting's, and
after him, Mr. Gorst, who came to Evans's, and after Mr. Gorst--Last year
Maggie could not have believed that there could be another after him. For
each of these persons she would willingly have died. To each of them her
soul leaped up and bowed itself, swept forward like a flame bowed and
driven by the wind.

As long as each loved her, the flame burned steadily and still. Maggie's
soul was appeased for a season. As each left her, the flame died out in
tears, and her pulses beat feebly, and her life languished. Maggie went
from flame to flame; for the hours when there was nobody to love simply
dropped into the darkness and were forgotten. She left off living when
she had to leave off loving. To be sure there was always Mr. Mumford. He
was a tobacconist, and he lived over the shop in a house fronting the
pier, a unique and dominant situation. And he was prepared to overlook
the past and make Maggie his wife and mistress of the house fronting the
pier. Unfortunately, Maggie did not love him. You couldn't love Mr.
Mumford. You could only be sorry for him.

But though Maggie went from flame to flame, there were long periods of
placidity when she loved nothing but her work, and was as good as gold.
Maggie's father wouldn't believe it. He had never forgiven her, not even
when the doctor told him that there was no sense in which the poor girl
could be held responsible; they should have looked after her better, that
was all. Maggie's father, the grocer, did not deal in smooth, extenuating
phrases. He called such madness sin. So did Maggie in her hours of peace
and sanity. She was terrified when she felt it coming on, and hid her
face from her doom. But when it came she went to meet it, uplifted,
tremulous, devoted, carrying her poor scorched heart in her hand for
sacrifice.

Each time that she loved, it was as if her former sins had been blotted
out; for there came a merciful forgetfulness that renewed, almost, her
innocence. Her heart had its own perverted constancy. No lover was like
her last lover, and for him she rejected and repudiated the past.

And each time that she loved she was torn asunder. She gave herself in
pieces; her heart first, then her soul, then, if it must needs be, her
bod