f that they used to feel when they were left alone
possessed him. He looked at her. He expected to find some terrible
change in her, but there was none. She looked indeed very thin, and, as
far as he could see, very tired, but she was the same as she had always
been. Moreover, she saw him and knew him. She smiled at him and said,
"Hullo, Terence."

The curtain which had been drawn between them for so long vanished
immediately.

"Well, Rachel," he replied in his usual voice, upon which she opened her
eyes quite widely and smiled with her familiar smile. He kissed her and
took her hand.

"It's been wretched without you," he said.

She still looked at him and smiled, but soon a slight look of fatigue or
perplexity came into her eyes and she shut them again.

"But when we're together we're perfectly happy," he said. He continued
to hold her hand.

The light being dim, it was impossible to see any change in her face.
An immense feeling of peace came over Terence, so that he had no wish
to move or to speak. The terrible torture and unreality of the last days
were over, and he had come out now into perfect certainty and peace. His
mind began to work naturally again and with great ease. The longer he
sat there the more profoundly was he conscious of the peace invading
every corner of his soul. Once he held his breath and listened acutely;
she was still breathing; he went on thinking for some time; they seemed
to be thinking together; he seemed to be Rachel as well as himself;
and then he listened again; no, she had ceased to breathe. So much the
better--this was death. It was nothing; it was to cease to breathe.
It was happiness, it was perfect happiness. They had now what they had
always wanted to have, the union which had been impossible while they
lived. Unconscious whether he thought the words or spoke them aloud, he
said, "No two people have ever been so happy as we have been. No one has
ever loved as we have loved."

It seemed to him that their complete union and happiness filled the room
with rings eddying more and more widely. He had no wish in the world
left unfulfilled. They possessed what could never be taken from them.

He was not conscious that any one had come into the room, but later,
moments later, or hours later perhaps, he felt an arm behind him. The
arms were round him. He did not want to have arms round him, and the
mysterious whispering voices annoyed him. He laid Rachel's hand, which
was now cold