ing over her with their pathetic greed, their menacing inquiry,
till he said: "Well, it's not done you any harm. You look very fit." But
his touch was too much even for her self-command, and she recoiled as if
he had struck her.

"What's the matter? Did I hurt you?"

It seemed to her that he was jeering--then realized as vividly that
he was not. And the full danger to her, perhaps to Mark himself, of
shrinking from this man, striking her with all its pitiable force, she
made a painful effort, slipped her hand under his arm, and said: "I'm
very tired. You startled me."

But he put her hand away, and turning his face, stared out of the
window. And so they reached their home.

When he had left her alone, she remained where she was standing, by her
wardrobe, without sound or movement, thinking: What am I going to do?
How am I going to live?

IX

When Mark Lennan, travelling through from Beaulieu, reached his rooms in
Chelsea, he went at once to the little pile of his letters, twice hunted
through them, then stood very still, with a stunned, sick feeling. Why
had she not sent him that promised note? And now he realized--though not
yet to the full--what it meant to be in love with a married woman. He
must wait in this suspense for eighteen hours at least, till he could
call, and find out what had happened to prevent her, till he could hear
from her lips that she still loved him. The chilliest of legal lovers
had access to his love, but he must possess a soul that was on fire, in
this deadly patience, for fear of doing something that might jeopardize
her. Telegraph? He dared not. Write? She would get it by the first post;
but what could he say that was not dangerous, if Cramier chanced to
see? Call? Still more impossible till three o'clock, at very earliest,
to-morrow. His gaze wandered round the studio. Were these household
gods, and all these works of his, indeed the same he had left twenty
days ago? They seemed to exist now only in so far as she might come to
see them--come and sit in such a chair, and drink out of such a cup, and
let him put this cushion for her back, and that footstool for her feet.
And so vividly could he see her lying back in that chair looking across
at him, that he could hardly believe she had never yet sat there. It was
odd how--without any resolution taken, without admission that their love
could not remain platonic, without any change in their relations, save
one humble kiss and a few wh