she
had felt secure in his comprehending pity; now she was flung back on
herself, doubly alone after that moment of communion.

Harney was still unaware of her presence. He sat without moving, moodily
staring before him at the same spot in the wall-paper. He had not even
had the energy to finish his packing, and his clothes and papers lay on
the floor about the portmanteau. Presently he unlocked his clasped hands
and stood up; and Charity, drawing back hastily, sank down on the step
of the verandah. The night was so dark that there was not much chance
of his seeing her unless he opened the window and before that she would
have time to slip away and be lost in the shadow of the trees. He stood
for a minute or two looking around the room with the same expression of
self-disgust, as if he hated himself and everything about him; then
he sat down again at the table, drew a few more strokes, and threw
his pencil aside. Finally he walked across the floor, kicking the
portmanteau out of his way, and lay down on the bed, folding his arms
under his head, and staring up morosely at the ceiling. Just so, Charity
had seen him at her side on the grass or the pine-needles, his eyes
fixed on the sky, and pleasure flashing over his face like the flickers
of sun the branches shed on it. But now the face was so changed that she
hardly knew it; and grief at his grief gathered in her throat, rose to
her eyes and ran over.

She continued to crouch on the steps, holding her breath and stiffening
herself into complete immobility. One motion of her hand, one tap on
the pane, and she could picture the sudden change in his face. In every
pulse of her rigid body she was aware of the welcome his eyes and lips
would give her; but something kept her from moving. It was not the
fear of any sanction, human or heavenly; she had never in her life been
afraid. It was simply that she had suddenly understood what would happen
if she went in. It was the thing that did happen between young men and
girls, and that North Dormer ignored in public and snickered over on the
sly. It was what Miss Hatchard was still ignorant of, but every girl
of Charity's class knew about before she left school. It was what had
happened to Ally Hawes's sister Julia, and had ended in her going to
Nettleton, and in people's never mentioning her name.

It did not, of course, always end so sensationally; nor, perhaps, on the
whole, so untragically. Charity had always suspected that