n however innocent, cannot forego it without a
sigh. She did not grudge Isabel her happiness or even envy it,
and she had never believed Lawrence to be in love with herself,
and yet this courtship that had gone on under her blind eyes
produced in her a faint sense of irritation, of male defection
that had made her look a little silly. She was aware of it
herself and faintly amused and faintly ashamed. "My time for
romantic adventure has gone by. Oh my poor Berns, you forget
that I'm thirty-six!"

Here was the authentic accent of truth. Clowes heard it, but he
had got beyond the point where a man is capable of saying "I was
wrong, forgive me." At that moment he no longer desired Laura to
be innocent, he would have preferred to justify himself by
proving her guilty. "Take your damned face out of this," he
said, enveloping her in an intensity of hate before which Laura's
delicate personality seemed to shrivel like a scorched leaf.
"Take it away before I kill you." He struck her hand from his
wrist and dashed himself down on the pillow, his great arms and
shoulders writhing above the marble waist like some fierce animal
trapped by the loins. "Oh, I can't stand it, I can't stand
it . . ."

"Oh dear, this is awful," said Selincourt weakly. He got up and
stood in the doorway. Despair is a terrible thing to watch. Not
even Lawrence dared go near Bernard. It was the priest, inured
to scenes of grief and rebellion, who came forward with the cold
strong common sense of the Christian stoic. "But you will have
to stand it," said Mr. Stafford sternly, "it is the Will of God
and rebellion only makes it worse. After all, thousands of men
of all ranks have had to bear the same trial and with much less
alleviation. You know now that your wife is innocent and is
prepared to forgive you." It did not strike Mr. Stafford that men
like Bernard Clowes do not care to be forgiven by their wives.
There was no confessional box in Chilmark church. "You have
plenty of interests left and plenty of friends: so long as you
don't alienate them by behaving in such an unmanly way. Lift
him, Val.-- Come, Major Clowes, you're torturing your wife. This
is cowardice--"

"Like Val's, eh?"

"Like--?"

"Like your precious Val behaved ten years ago." Clowes raised
himself on his elbows. "Aha! how's that for a smack in the eye?"

"Val, my darling lad," said Mr. Stafford, stumbling a little in
his speech, "what--what is this?"

"P