shouldn't speak of her at all; it is wrong
to speak of her, even though I don't mention her name, but it is
impossible to help it. If you are proud of a woman you must speak of
her--and I was so proud of her. It is very easy to be discreet when you
are ashamed of them," he added, with a laugh. "When I had nothing to do,
I used to sit down and think of her, and I used to say to myself that if
I were the king of the whole world I could not get anything better. But
it is all over now."

"Well, you've had six years, the very prime of her life."

"That's true; you're very sympathetic, Harding. Have another cigarette.
I was faithful to her for six years--you can't understand that, but it
is quite true, and I had plenty of chances, but, when I came to think
of it, it always seemed that I liked her the best."

At the same moment Evelyn stood on her balcony, watching the evening.
The park was breathless, and the sky rose high and pale, and calm as
marble. But the houses seemed to speak unutterable things, and she
closed the window and stood looking across the room. Then walking
towards the sofa as if she were going to sit down, she flung herself
upon it and buried her face among the cushions. She lay there weeping,
and when she raised her face she dashed the tears from her streaming
cheeks, but this pause was only the prelude to another passionate
outbreak, and she wept again, finding in tears fatigue, and in fatigue
relief. She sobbed until she could sob no more, and so tired was she
that she no longer cared what happened; very tired, and her head heavy,
she went upstairs, eager for sleep. And closing her eyes she felt a
delicious numbing of sense, a dissolution of her being into darkness....

But in her waking there was a consciousness, a foreboding of a nameless
dread, of a heavy weight upon her, and when the foreboding in her ears
grew louder, she seemed to know that an irreparable calamity had
happened, and trying to fathom it, she saw the wall-paper, and it told
her she was in her own room. She seemed to be trying to read something
on it, but what she was trying to read and understand seemed to move
away, and her brain laboured in anxious pursuit. Her eyes opened, and
she remembered her interview with Owen. She had sent him away, she
understood it all now, she had sent Owen away! She had told him that
Ulick was her lover, so even if he were to come back it never could be
the same as it was. Why had she told him about U