Up till now she had been careless of her destiny. She had been so
joyous, so defiant in her sinning. By that charm of hers, younger than
youth, indestructibly childlike, she had carried it through with the
audacity of chartered innocence. She had propitiated, ignored, eluded
the more feminine amenities of fate. Of course, she had had her bad
moments. She had been sorry, sometimes, and she had been sick; but on
the whole her powers had been splendidly recuperative. She had shown
none of those naked tender spots that provoke destiny to strike. And
with it all she had preserved, perhaps too scrupulously, the rules laid
down for such as she. She had kept her own place. She had never
attempted to invade the sanctuaries set apart for other women.

It was Robert who had tempted her to that transgression. He had opened
the door of the sanctuary for her and shut it behind her and put his
back against it. He had made her believe that if she stayed in there,
with him, it would be all right. She might have known what would happen.
It was for such a moment, of infatuation made perfect, that destiny was
waiting.

Kitty had no very luminous idea of its intentions. But she bore in her
blood forebodings, older and obscurer than the flashes of the brain; and
her heart had swift immortal instincts, forerunners of the mortal hours.
The powers of pain, infallibly wise, implacably just, would choose their
moment well, striking at her through the hands of the children she had
never borne.

If Robert found out what she was before he married her, he would have
to give her up because of them. She knew better than he did the hold she
had over him. She had tried to keep him in ignorance of her power, so
great was her terror of what it might do to him, and to her through him.
Yet, with all her sad science, she remained uncertain of his ultimate
behaviour. That was the charm and the danger of him. For fear of some
undiscovered, uncalculated quality in him she had held herself back; she
had been careful how she touched him, how she looked at him, lest her
hands or her eyes should betray her; lest in his heart he should call
her by her name, and fling her from him because of them. Whereas, but
for them, she judged that whatever she was he would not give her up. She
was not quite sure (you couldn't say _what_ a man like Robert would or
wouldn't do), but she felt that if she could have had him to herself, if
there had been only he and she, facing t