eam seemed to dance in the shadows of
her eyes, yet was gone so swiftly that he could not be sure of having
seen it. Had she smiled?

"I'll be there," he cried. "I'll wait for you."

She turned from him, opened the door, and went out.

That evening, as Janet was wiping the dishes handed her by her mother,
she was repeating to herself "Shall I go--or shan't I?"--just as if the
matter were in doubt. But in her heart she was convinced of its
predetermination by some power other than her own volition. With this
feeling, that she really had no choice, that she was being guided and
impelled, she went to her bedroom after finishing her task. The hands of
the old dining-room clock pointed to quarter of eight, and Lise had
already made her toilet and departed. Janet opened the wardrobe, looked
at the new blue suit hanging so neatly on its wire holder, hesitated, and
closed the door again. Here, at any rate, seemed a choice. She would not
wear that, to-night. She tidied her hair, put on her hat and coat, and
went out; but once in the street she did not hurry, though she knew the
calmness she apparently experienced to be false: the calmness of
fatality, because she was obeying a complicated impulse stronger than
herself--an impulse that at times seemed mere curiosity. Somewhere,
removed from her immediate consciousness, a storm was raging; she was
aware of a disturbance that reached her faintly, like the distant
throbbing of the looms she heard when she turned from Faber into West
Street She had not been able to eat any supper. That throbbing of the
looms in the night! As it grew louder and louder the tension within her
increased, broke its bounds, set her heart to throbbing too--throbbing
wildly. She halted, and went on again, precipitately, but once more
slowed her steps as she came to West Street and the glare of light at the
end of the bridge; at a little distance, under the chequered shadows of
the bare branches, she saw something move--a man, Ditmar. She stood
motionless as he hurried toward her.

"You've come! You've forgiven me?" he asked.

"Why were you--down there?" she asked.

"Why? Because I thought--I thought you wouldn't want anybody to know--"

It was quite natural that he should not wish to be seen; although she had
no feeling of guilt, she herself did not wish their meeting known. She
resented the subterfuge in him, but she made no comment because his
perplexity, his embarrassment were gratifying to her res