een the pines charging upon her and leaping as high as her waist.
She commanded, "Go away. Go home." She even picked up from the ground
a bit of a broken branch and threw it at him. At this his delight knew
no bounds; his rushes became faster, his yapping louder; he seemed to be
having the time of his life. She was convinced that the moment she
threw herself down he would spring over after her as if it were part of
the game. She was vexed almost to tears. She was touched too. And
when he stood still at some distance as if suddenly rooted to the ground
wagging his tail slowly and watching her intensely with his shining eyes
another fear came to her. She imagined herself gone and the creature
sitting on the brink, its head thrown up to the sky and howling for
hours. This thought was not to be borne. Then my shout reached her
ears.

She told me all this with simplicity. My voice had destroyed her
poise--the suicide poise of her mind. Every act of ours, the most
criminal, the most mad, presupposes a balance of thought, feeling and
will, like a correct attitude for an effective stroke in a game. And I
had destroyed it. She was no longer in proper form for the act. She
was not very much annoyed. Next day would do. She would have to slip
away without attracting the notice of the dog. She thought of the
necessity almost tenderly. She came down the path carrying her despair
with lucid calmness. But when she saw herself deserted by the dog, she
had an impulse to turn round, go up again and be done with it. Not even
that animal cared for her--in the end.

"I really did think that he was attached to me. What did he want to
pretend for, like this? I thought nothing could hurt me any more. Oh
yes. I would have gone up, but I felt suddenly so tired. So tired.
And then you were there. I didn't know what you would do. You might
have tried to follow me and I didn't think I could run--not up hill--not
then."

She had raised her white face a little, and it was queer to hear her say
these things. At that time of the morning there are comparatively few
people out in that part of the town. The broad interminable perspective
of the East India Dock Road, the great perspective of drab brick walls,
of grey pavement, of muddy roadway rumbling dismally with loaded carts
and vans lost itself in the distance, imposing and shabby in its
spacious meanness of aspect, in its immeasurable poverty of forms, of
colouring, of