if she could; keep, at all events, each one of her real thoughts
and hopes! She could have writhed, and cried out; instead, she tightened
her grip on the handle of her bag, and smiled. Though so skilled in
knowledge of his moods, she felt, in his greeting, his fierce grip of
her shoulders, the smouldering of some feeling the nature of which she
could not quite fathom. His voice had a grim sincerity: "Glad you're
back--thought you were never coming!" Resigned to his charge, a feeling
of sheer physical faintness so beset her that she could hardly reach
the compartment he had reserved. It seemed to her that, for all her
foreboding, she had not till this moment had the smallest inkling of
what was now before her; and at his muttered: "Must we have the old
fossils in?" she looked back to assure herself that her Uncle and Aunt
were following. To avoid having to talk, she feigned to have travelled
badly, leaning back with closed eyes, in her corner. If only she could
open them and see, not this square-jawed face with its intent gaze of
possession, but that other with its eager eyes humbly adoring her. The
interminable journey ended all too soon. She clung quite desperately to
the Colonel's hand on the platform at Charing Cross. When his kind face
vanished she would be lost indeed! Then, in the closed cab, she heard
her husband's: "Aren't you going to kiss me?" and submitted to his
embrace.

She tried so hard to think: What does it matter? It's not I, not my
soul, my spirit--only my miserable lips!

She heard him say: "You don't seem too glad to see me!" And then: "I
hear you had young Lennan out there. What was HE doing?"

She felt the turmoil of sudden fear, wondered whether she was showing
it, lost it in unnatural alertness--all in the second before she
answered: "Oh! just a holiday."

Some seconds passed, and then he said:

"You didn't mention him in your letters."

She answered coolly: "Didn't I? We saw a good deal of him."

She knew that he was looking at her--an inquisitive, half-menacing
regard. Why--oh, why!--could she not then and there cry out: "And I love
him--do you hear?--I love him!" So awful did it seem to be denying her
love with these half lies! But it was all so much more grim and hopeless
than even she had thought. How inconceivable, now, that she had ever
given herself up to this man for life! If only she could get away from
him to her room, and scheme and think! For his eyes never left her,
travell