the future, she thought. They might be
apart. That did not matter. She had no thought of a close connection, of
frequent intercourse even. She only wanted desperately, frantically,
to know that someone who had loved her could love her still in spite of
what had happened. If she could retain one deep affection she felt that
she could live.

The morrow would convince her.

That night she did not sleep. She lay in bed and heard the water falling
in the gorge, and when the dawn began to break she did a thing she had
not done for a long time.

She got out of bed, knelt down and prayed--prayed to Him who had dealt
terribly with her that He would be merciful when Robin came.

When it was daylight and the Italian maid knocked at her door she told
her to get out a plain, dark dress. She did her hair herself with the
utmost simplicity. That at least was still beautiful. Then she went down
and walked in the high garden above the lake. The greyness had lifted
and the sky was blue. The mellowness rather than the sadness of autumn
was apparent, throned on the tall mountains whose woods were bathed in
sunshine. All along the great old wall, that soared forty feet from
the water, roses were climbing. Scarlet and white geraniums bloomed in
discoloured ancient vases. Clumps of oleanders showed pink showers
of blossoms. Tall bamboos reared their thin heads towards the tufted
summits of palms that suggested Africa. Monstrous cypresses aspired,
with a sort of haughty resignation, above their brother trees. The bees
went to and fro. Flies circled and settled. Lizards glided across the
warm stones and rustled into hiding among the ruddy fallen leaves. And
always the white water sang in the gorge as it rushed towards the piazza
of Casa Felice.

And Lady Holme tried to hope.

Yet, as she walked slowly to and fro amid the almost rank luxuriance
of the garden, she was gnawed by a terrible anxiety. The dreadful
humbleness, the shrinking cowardice of the unsightly human being invaded
her. She strove to put them from her. She strove to call Robin's own
arguments and assertions to her aid. What she had been she still was
in all essentials. Her self was unharmed, existed, could love, hate, be
tender, be passionate as before. Viola was there still within her,
the living spirit to which a name had been given when she was a little
child. The talent was there which had spoken, which could still speak,
through her voice. The beating heart was there