ome back to you again, better than ever."

Daphne Wing answered by a feeble sigh.

There was silence. Gyp thought: 'She's falling asleep.'

With eyes and mouth closed like that, and all alabaster white, the face
was perfect, purged of its little commonnesses. Strange freak that this
white flower of a face could ever have been produced by Mr. and Mrs.
Wagge!

Daphne Wing opened her eyes and said:

"Oh! Mrs. Fiorsen, I feel so weak. And I feel much more lonely now.
There's nothing anywhere."

Gyp got up; she felt herself being carried into the mood of the girl's
heart, and was afraid it would be seen. Daphne Wing went on:

"Do you know, when nurse said she'd brought a visitor, I thought it was
him; but I'm glad now. If he had looked at me like he did--I couldn't
have borne it."

Gyp bent down and put her lips to the damp forehead. Faint, very faint,
there was still the scent of orange-blossom.

When she was once more in the garden, she hurried away; but instead of
crossing the fields again, turned past the side of the cottage into the
coppice behind. And, sitting down on a log, her hands pressed to her
cheeks and her elbows to her breast, she stared at the sunlit bracken
and the flies chasing each other over it. Love! Was it always something
hateful and tragic that spoiled lives? Criss-cross! One darting on
another, taking her almost before she knew she was seized, then darting
away and leaving her wanting to be seized again. Or darting on her, who,
when seized, was fatal to the darter, yet had never wanted to be seized.
Or darting one on the other for a moment, then both breaking away too
soon. Did never two dart at each other, seize, and cling, and ever after
be one? Love! It had spoiled her father's life, and Daphne Wing's;
never came when it was wanted; always came when it was not. Malevolent
wanderer, alighting here, there; tiring of the spirit before it tired of
the body; or of the body before it tired of the spirit. Better to have
nothing to do with it--far better! If one never loved, one would never
feel lonely--like that poor girl. And yet! No--there was no "and yet."
Who that was free would wish to become a slave? A slave--like Daphne
Wing! A slave--like her own husband to his want of a wife who did not
love him. A slave like her father had been--still was, to a memory. And
watching the sunlight on the bracken, Gyp thought: 'Love! Keep far from
me. I don't want you. I shall never want you!'

Every