now thirty hours,
without having overcome with his last kisses the feeling of disaster
which had settled on her when he told her of his resolve. Her eyes had
seen deeper than his; her instinct had received a message from Fate.

To be the dragger-down, the destroyer of his usefulness; to be not
the helpmate, but the clog; not the inspiring sky, but the cloud! And
because of a scruple which she could not understand! She had no anger
with that unintelligible scruple; but her fatalism, and her sympathy had
followed it out into his future. Things being so, it could not be
long before he felt that her love was maiming him; even if he went on
desiring her, it would be only with his body. And if, for this scruple,
he were capable of giving up his public life, he would be capable of
living on with her after his love was dead! This thought she could not
bear. It stung to the very marrow of her nerves. And yet surely Life
could not be so cruel as to have given her such happiness meaning to
take it from her! Surely her love was not to be only one summer's day;
his love but an embrace, and then--for ever nothing!

This morning, fortified by despair, she admitted her own beauty. He
would, he must want her more than that other life, at the very thought
of which her face darkened. That other life so hard, and far from her!
So loveless, formal, and yet--to him so real, so desperately, accursedly
real! If he must indeed give up his career, then surely the life they
could live together would make up to him--a life among simple and sweet
things, all over the world, with music and pictures, and the flowers
and all Nature, and friends who sought them for themselves, and in being
kind to everyone, and helping the poor and the unfortunate, and loving
each other! But he did not want that sort of life! What was the good of
pretending that he did? It was right and natural he should want, to use
his powers! To lead and serve! She would not have him otherwise: With
these thoughts hovering and darting within her, she went on twisting and
coiling her dark hair, and burying her heart beneath its lace defences.
She noted too, with her usual care, two fading blossoms in the bowl
of flowers on her dressing-table, and, removing them, emptied out the
water and refilled the bowl.

Before she left her bedroom the sunbeams had already ceased to dance,
the grey filaments of light were gone. Autumn sky had come into its own.
Passing the mirror in the hall wh