d dared to say,
were true, he might die. He might die, not in some dim far-off time when
nature made the thing seem inevitable, when he had lived his life, been
Prime Minister and so forth, and she had lived hers, filling it with work
for him, and with looking on at him and with endurance of him, but
sooner, much sooner, almost now, when he had not lived his life, while
hers was not exhausted, when there would still be left to her another of
her own to live after he was gone. It was strange to think of that, to
see how what had seemed to be irrevocable and for ever, to stretch in
unfaltering perpetuity to the limits of old age, might so easily, by the
occasion of so small a matter as a heart not sound, turn out to be a
passing thing, and there come to her again freedom, choice, a life to be
re-made. If that happened, how would she feel? At the new-learnt chance
of that happening, how did she feel? Very strange, very bewildered, very
upset; that was her answer. Such a thing--Quisante's death she
meant--would mean so much, change so much, take away so much--and might
give so much. Her thoughts flew off to the new life that she might live
then, to the new freedom from embarrassments, from fears and from
disgusts, to a new love which it might be hers to gain and to enjoy.
People said that it was always impossible to go back--_vestigia nulla_.
But that event would open to her a sort of going back, such a return to
her old life and her surroundings as might some day make the time she
had spent with Quisante and its experiences seem but an episode, studding
the belt of long days with one strange bizarre ornament.

And on the other side? There was the greatest difficulty, the greatest
puzzle. She had not failed to understand the roughness of Aunt Maria's
tones, her frightened eyes and the shaking of her hands. It would be very
strange to see an end of him, to know that he would never be Prime
Minister and so forth, to look on at a world devoid of him, to live a
life in which he was only a memory. How were the scales to be held, which
way did the balance incline? She could not tell, and at last she smiled
at her inability to answer the riddle. It would amuse people so much, and
shock some people so much and doubtless so properly, if they knew that
she was sitting in her drawing-room in the afternoon, trying to make up
her mind whether she would rather her husband lived or that he died. Even
there the fallacy crept in; she was not