e, the faint
characters flashed into sight upon the blank, running in waves, as when
hot iron changes from white to sullen red. Anne felt that her union with
Majendie had made her one with that other woman, that she shared her
memory and her shame. For Majendie's sake she loathed her womanhood that
was yesterday as sacred to her as her soul. Through him she had conceived
a thing hitherto unknown to her, a passionate consciousness and hatred of
her body. She hated the hands that had held him, the feet that had gone
with him, the lips that had touched him, the eyes that had looked at him
to love him. Him she detested, not so much on his own account, as because
he had made her detestable to herself.

Her eyes wandered round the room. Its alien aspect was becoming
transformed for her, like a scene on a tragic stage. The light had
established itself in the windows and pier-glasses. The wall-paper was
flushing in its own pink dawn. And the roses bloomed again on the grey
ground of the bed-curtains. These things had become familiar, even dear,
through their three days' association with her happy bridals. Now the
room and everything in it seemed to have been created for all time to be
the accomplices and ministers of her degradation. They were well
acquainted with her and it; they held foreknowledge of her, as the
pier-glass held her dishonoured and dishevelled image.

She thought of her dead father's house, the ivy-coated Deanery in the
south, and of the small white bedroom, a girl's bedroom that had once
known her and would never know her again. She thought of her father and
mother, and was glad that they were dead. Once she wondered why their
death had been God's will. Now she saw very clearly why. But why she
herself should have been sent upon this road, of all roads of suffering,
was more than Anne could see.

She, whose nature revolted against the despotically human, had schooled
herself into submission to the divine. Her sense of being supremely
guided and protected had, before now, enabled her to act with decision
in turbulent and uncertain situations of another sort. Where other people
writhed or vacillated, Anne had held on her course, uplifted,
unimpassioned, and resigned. Now she was driven hither and thither,
she sank to the very dust and turned in it, she saw no way before her,
neither her own way nor God's way.

Widowhood would not have left her so abject and so helpless. If her
husband's body had lain dead b