beseech you
to go away!"

"Ah, don't say that. Don't kill me!" he cried.

She clasped her hands; her eyes were streaming with tears. "As you love
me, as you pity me, leave me alone!"

He glared at her a moment through the dusk, and the next instant she
felt his arms about her and his lips on her own lips. His kiss was like
white lightning, a flash that spread, and spread again, and stayed; and
it was extraordinarily as if, while she took it, she felt each thing in
his hard manhood that had least pleased her, each aggressive fact of his
face, his figure, his presence, justified of its intense identity and
made one with this act of possession. So had she heard of those wrecked
and under water following a train of images before they sink. But when
darkness returned she was free. She never looked about her; she only
darted from the spot. There were lights in the windows of the house;
they shone far across the lawn. In an extraordinarily short time--for
the distance was considerable--she had moved through the darkness (for
she saw nothing) and reached the door. Here only she paused. She looked
all about her; she listened a little; then she put her hand on the
latch. She had not known where to turn; but she knew now. There was a
very straight path.

Two days afterwards Caspar Goodwood knocked at the door of the house in
Wimpole Street in which Henrietta Stackpole occupied furnished lodgings.
He had hardly removed his hand from the knocker when the door was opened
and Miss Stackpole herself stood before him. She had on her hat and
jacket; she was on the point of going out. "Oh, good-morning," he said,
"I was in hopes I should find Mrs. Osmond."

Henrietta kept him waiting a moment for her reply; but there was a good
deal of expression about Miss Stackpole even when she was silent. "Pray
what led you to suppose she was here?"

"I went down to Gardencourt this morning, and the servant told me she
had come to London. He believed she was to come to you."

Again Miss Stackpole held him--with an intention of perfect kindness--in
suspense. "She came here yesterday, and spent the night. But this
morning she started for Rome."

Caspar Goodwood was not looking at her; his eyes were fastened on the
doorstep. "Oh, she started--?" he stammered. And without finishing
his phrase or looking up he stiffly averted himself. But he couldn't
otherwise move.

Henrietta had come out, closing the door behind her, and now she put out
her h