, she saw distinctly the fashion and the colour of it,
and the little ink-mark on the sleeve. She was writing, this solitary
woman, with an extraordinary concentration and rapidity. Jane found
herself looking on, fascinated as by the performance of a stranger,
admiring as she would have admired a stranger. The solitary woman knew
nothing of Hugh Brodrick or of his house at Putney, and cared less; she
had a desire and a memory in which he had no part. That seemed to Jane
most curious.

Then suddenly she was aware that she, Jane Brodrick, and this woman,
Jane Holland, were inseparably and indestructibly one. For a moment her
memory and her desire merged with this woman's desire and memory, so
that the house and the garden and the figure of her husband became
strange to her and empty of all significance. As for her own presence
in the extraordinary scene, she had no longer her vague, delicious
wonder at its reality. What she felt was a shock of surprise, of
spiritual dislocation. She was positively asking herself, "What am I
doing here?"

The wonder passed with a sense of shifting in her brain.

But there was terror for her in this resurgence of her unwedded self. In
any settlement of affairs between Jane Holland and Jane Brodrick it
would be the younger, the unwedded woman who would demand of the other
her account. It was she who was aware, already, of the imminent
disaster, the irreparable loss. It was she who suffered when they talked
about the genius of Jane Holland.

For they were talking more than ever. In another week it would be upon
her, the Great Event of nineteen-five. Her frightful celebrity exposed
her, forced her to face the thing she had brought forth and was ashamed
to own.

She might have brazened it out somehow but for Nina Lempriere and her
book. It appeared, Nina's book, in these hours that tingled with
expectation of the terrible Event. In a majestic silence and secrecy it
appeared. Jane had heard Tanqueray praise it. "Thank heaven," he said,
"there's one of us that's sinless. Nina's genius can lay nothing to her
charge." She saw it. Nina's flame was pure. Her hand had virginal
strength.

It had not always had it. Her younger work, "Tales of the Marches,"
showed violence and torture in its strength. It was as if Nina had torn
her genius from the fire that destroyed it and had compelled it to
create. Her very style moved with the vehemence of her revolt from
Tanqueray. But there had been a year