f even she were subject to the inevitable law, if
for her too after the apex came the downward slope? That was the fear
that gnawed at her, that was what she dreaded when the Parson had held
out exactly that as a hope.

While she had been suffering and loving she had longed for the release
of cessation; now she dreaded it, for it undermined to her the whole of
the past. She was one of those women to whom faithfulness in herself was
a necessity of self-respect, and failure of love, without any deflection
of it, was to her a failure of faithfulness. She had nothing tangible to
go upon; it was only that she felt this deadness now upon her was not
the mere reaction of feeling, but an actual snapping of something in the
fabric of life. She told herself it was not possible, that not so could
she give the lie to all she had suffered.

As she went up the lane to Paradise she met Ishmael coming down it;
evidently he had been taking Georgie home. She stopped to speak to him,
and, feeling he was reluctant to pass on by himself yet awhile, she
leant over a gate and let him talk to her. For a minute or so he said
nothing that was not an ordinary commonplace of encounter, but after a
short silence had fallen between them he began abruptly on another note.

"Judy," he said, "do you believe in what is called 'falling in love'?"

"Do I believe in it?" echoed Judith. "It depends on how you mean that.
If you ask do I believe that there is such a phenomenon, I do, for the
simple reason that one sees it happening all around one and people doing
the maddest things under its influence. If you mean do I think it's a
good thing, or a pleasant thing, or a thing that lasts ...?"

"Yes, that's what I meant, I think."

"Falling in love is giving someone the power to hurt you.... I suppose
it depends on you, or rather on them, if it's worth it or not. But how
can one say anything of any value about a thing unless one has first
clearly defined what that thing is? And love is like religion, like the
vision of truth itself--it means something different to every man."

"I thought women were always supposed to love in much the same way,"
said Ishmael vaguely--"better than we do. They always say so."

"Oh, it depends on the individual, as always. Chiefly it depends on
whether you're the sort of person that loves 'in spite of' or 'because
of.' If you're the 'because of' kind, all sorts of things, external
drawbacks and disappointments in character,