as
walking with a man on the far side; their faces were turned toward each
other. Gyp heard their voices, and, faint, dizzy, stood looking back
after them. They passed under a lamp; the light glinted on the woman's
hair, on a trick of Summerhay's, the lift of one shoulder, when he was
denying something; she heard his voice, high-pitched. She watched them
cross, mount the stone steps she had just come down, pass along the
railed stone passage, enter the doorway, disappear. And such horror
seized on her that she could hardly walk away.

"Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!" So it went in her mind--a kind of moaning, like
that of a cold, rainy wind through dripping trees. What did it mean? Oh,
what did it mean? In this miserable tumult, the only thought that did
not come to her was that of going back to his chambers. She hurried
away. It was a wonder she was not run over, for she had no notion what
she was doing, where going, and crossed the streets without the least
attention to traffic. She came to Trafalgar Square, and stood leaning
against its parapet in front of the National Gallery. Here she had her
first coherent thought: So that was why his chambers had been empty! No
clerk--no one! That they might be alone. Alone, where she had dreamed of
being alone with him! And only that morning he had kissed her and said,
"Good-bye, treasure!" A dreadful little laugh got caught in her throat,
confused with a sob. Why--why had she a heart? Down there, against the
plinth of one of the lions, a young man leaned, with his arms round a
girl, pressing her to him. Gyp turned away from the sight and resumed
her miserable wandering. She went up Bury Street. No light; not any sign
of life! It did not matter; she could not have gone in, could not stay
still, must walk! She put up her veil to get more air, feeling choked.

The trees of the Green Park, under which she was passing now, had still
a few leaves, and they gleamed in the lamplight copper-coloured as that
girl's hair. All sorts of torturing visions came to her. Those empty
chambers! She had seen one little minute of their intimacy. A hundred
kisses might have passed between them--a thousand words of love! And he
would lie to her. Already he had acted a lie! She had not deserved
that. And this sense of the injustice done her was the first relief she
felt--this definite emotion of a mind clouded by sheer misery. She had
not deserved that he should conceal things from her. She had not had one
tho