om her
actual emotion and thought. She was glad to be alone. She was glad to
be away from Richard Calmady, though zealously obedient to his wishes
in respect of this inspection. For his presence became increasingly
oppressive from the intensity of feeling it produced in her, and which
she was, at present, powerless to direct towards any reasonable and
definite end. This rendered her tongue-tied, and, as she fancied,
stupid. Her unreadiness mortified her. She, usually indifferent enough
to the impression she produced on others, was sensible of a keen desire
to appear at her best. She did in fact, so she believed, appear at her
worst, slow of understanding and of sympathy.--But then all the future
hung in the balance. The scale delayed to turn. And the strain of
waiting became agitating to the point of distress.

At last the course of her so-dutiful survey brought her to a quaint,
little chamber, situated immediately over the square, outstanding
porch. It was lighted by a single, hooded window placed in the centre
of the front wall. It was evidently designed for a linen room, and was
in process of being fitted with shelves and cupboards of white pine.
The floor was deep in shavings, long, curly, wafer-coloured,
semi-transparent. They rustled like fallen leaves when Honoria stepped
among them. The air was filled with the odour of them, dry and resinous
as that of the fir forest. Ever after that odour affected Honoria with
a sense of half-fearful joy and of impending fate. She stood in the
middle of the quaint, little chamber. The ceiling was low. She had to
bend her head to avoid violent contact between the central beam of it
and the crown of her felt hat. But circumscribed though the space, and
uncomfortable though her posture, she had an absurd longing to lock the
door of the little room, never to come out, to stay here forever! Here
she was safe. But outside, on the threshold, stood something she dared
not name. It drew her with a pain at once terrible and lovely. She
dreaded it. Yet once close to it, once face to face with it, she knew
it would have her--that it would not take no for an answer. Her pride,
her chastity, were in arms. Was this, she wondered, what men and women
speak of so lightly, laugh and joke about? Was this love?--To her it
seemed wholly awe-inspiring. And so she clung strangely to the shelter
of the quaint, little room with its sea of rustling, resinous shavings.
On the other side the door of it wai