ng struggle and
fear.

She knew, she knew what was happening. It was as if the walls of
personality were wearing thin, and through them she felt him trying to
get at her.

She put the thought from her. It was absurd. It was insane. Such things
could not be. It was not in any region of such happenings that she held
him, but in the place of peace, the charmed circle, the flawless crystal
sphere.

Still the thought persisted; and still, in spite of it, she held him,
she would not let him go. By her honour, and by her love for Milly she
was bound to hold him, even though she knew how terribly, how implacably
he prevailed.

She was aware now that the persistence of his image on the blackness was
only a sign to her of his being there in his substance; in his supreme
innermost essence. It had obviously no relation to his bodily
appearance, since she had not seen him for three days. It tended more
and more to vanish, to give place to the shapeless, nameless,
all-pervading presence. And her fear of him became pervading, nameless
and shapeless too.

Somehow it was always behind her now; it followed her from room to room
of her house; it drove her out of doors. It seemed to her that she went
before it with quick uncertain feet and a fluttering heart, aimless and
tormented as a leaf driven by a vague light wind. Sometimes it sent her
up the field towards the wood; sometimes it would compel her to go a
little way towards the Farm; and then it was as if it took her by the
shoulders and turned her back again towards her house.

On the fourth day (which was Tuesday of the Powells' last week), she
determined to fight this fear. She could not defy it to the extent of
going on to the Farm where she might see Harding, but certainly she
would not suffer it to turn her from her hill-top. It was there that she
had always gone as the night fell, calling home her thoughts to sleep;
and it was there, seven weeks ago, that the moon, the golden-white and
holy moon, had led her to the consecration of her gift. She had returned
softly, seven weeks ago, carrying carefully her gift, as a fragile,
flawless crystal. Since then how recklessly she had held it! To what
jars and risks she had exposed the exquisite and sacred thing!

She waited for her hour between sunset and twilight. It was perfect,
following a perfect day. Above the wood the sky had a violet lucidity,
purer than the day; below it the pale brown earth wore a violet haze,
and over