was possible. She could not have seen
them as long as the least taint of Harding's malady remained with her.
And how could she have faced Milly after having broken her word to her?

Not that she regretted even that, the breaking of her word, so sane was
she. She could conceive that, if it had not been for Rodney Lanyon, she
might have had the courage to have gone on. She might have considered
that she was bound to save Harding, even at the price of her own sanity,
since there _was_ her word to Milly. But it might be questioned whether
by holding on to him she would have kept it, whether she really could
have saved him that way. She was no more than a vehicle, a crystal
vessel for the inscrutable and secret power, and in destroying her
utterly Harding would have destroyed himself. You could not transmit the
Power through a broken crystal--why, not even through one that had a
flaw.

There had been a flaw somewhere; so much was certain. And as she
searched now for the flaw, with her luminous sanity, she found it in her
fear. She knew, she had always known, the danger of taking fear and the
thought of fear with her into that world where to think was to will, and
to will was to create. But for the rest, she had tried to make herself
clear as crystal. And what could she do more than give up Rodney?

As she set her face towards the village, she was sustained by a sacred
ardour, a sacrificial exaltation. But as she turned homewards across the
solitary fields, she realised the sadness, the desolation of the thing
she had accomplished. He would not come. Her message would reach him two
hours before the starting of the train he always came by.

Across the village she saw her white house shining, and the windows of
his room (her study, which was always his room when he came); its
lattices were flung open as if it welcomed him.

Something had happened there.

Her maid was standing by the garden gate looking for her. As she
approached, the girl came over the field to meet her. She had an air of
warning her, of preparing her for something.

It was Mrs. Powell, the maid said. She had come again; she was in there,
waiting for Miss Agatha. She wouldn't go away; she had gone straight in.
She was in an awful state. The maid thought it was something to do with
Mr. Powell.

They had not gone, then.

"If I were you, Miss," the maid was saying, "I wouldn't see her."

"Of course I shall see her."

She went at once into the room wh