sed before the
revelation was over and the old surroundings asserted themselves. She
leant in silence against the mantelpiece.

"There are different ways of loving," she murmured, half to herself, at
length.

Katharine made no reply and seemed unaware of her words. She seemed
absorbed in her own thoughts.

"Perhaps he's waiting in the street again to-night," she exclaimed.
"I'll go now. I might find him."

"It's far more likely that he'll come here," said Mary, and Katharine,
after considering for a moment, said:

"I'll wait another half-hour."

She sank down into her chair again, and took up the same position which
Mary had compared to the position of one watching an unseeing face. She
watched, indeed, not a face, but a procession, not of people, but of
life itself: the good and bad; the meaning; the past, the present, and
the future. All this seemed apparent to her, and she was not ashamed
of her extravagance so much as exalted to one of the pinnacles of
existence, where it behoved the world to do her homage. No one but
she herself knew what it meant to miss Ralph Denham on that particular
night; into this inadequate event crowded feelings that the great crises
of life might have failed to call forth. She had missed him, and knew
the bitterness of all failure; she desired him, and knew the torment
of all passion. It did not matter what trivial accidents led to this
culmination. Nor did she care how extravagant she appeared, nor how
openly she showed her feelings.

When the dinner was ready Mary told her to come, and she came
submissively, as if she let Mary direct her movements for her. They
ate and drank together almost in silence, and when Mary told her to
eat more, she ate more; when she was told to drink wine, she drank it.
Nevertheless, beneath this superficial obedience, Mary knew that she was
following her own thoughts unhindered. She was not inattentive so much
as remote; she looked at once so unseeing and so intent upon some vision
of her own that Mary gradually felt more than protective--she became
actually alarmed at the prospect of some collision between Katharine
and the forces of the outside world. Directly they had done, Katharine
announced her intention of going.

"But where are you going to?" Mary asked, desiring vaguely to hinder
her.

"Oh, I'm going home--no, to Highgate perhaps."

Mary saw that it would be useless to try to stop her. All she could do
was to insist upon coming too, but