ver! He will be dust, and
you dust, but your love will live! Somewhere--in the woods, among the
flowers, or down in the dark water, it will haunt! For it only you have
lived!... Then she noticed that a slender silvery-winged thing, unlike
any moth she had ever seen, had settled on her gown, close to her neck.
It seemed to be sleeping, so delicate and drowsy, having come in from
the breathless dark, thinking, perhaps, that her whiteness was a
light. What dim memory did it rouse; something of HIM, something HE had
done--in darkness, on a night like this. Ah, yes! that evening after
Gorbio, the little owl-moth on her knee! He had touched her when he took
that cosy wan velvet-eyed thing off her!

She leaned out for air. What a night!--whose stars were hiding in the
sheer heavy warmth; whose small, round, golden moon had no transparency!
A night like a black pansy with a little gold heart. And silent! For,
of the trees, that whispered so much at night, not even the aspens had
voice. The unstirring air had a dream-solidity against her cheeks. But
in all the stillness, what sentiency, what passion--as in her heart!
Could she not draw HIM to her from those woods, from that dark gleaming
river, draw him from the flowers and trees and the passion-mood of
the sky--draw him up to her waiting here, so that she was no more this
craving creature, but one with him and the night! And she let her head
droop down on her hands.

All night long she stayed there at the window. Sometimes dozing in the
chair; once waking with a start, fancying that her husband was bending
over her. Had he been--and stolen away? And the dawn came; dew-grey,
filmy and wistful, woven round each black tree, and round the white
dove-cot, and falling scarf-like along the river. And the chirrupings of
birds stirred among leaves as yet invisible.

She slept then.

XVIII

When she awoke once more, in daylight, smiling, Cramier was standing
beside her chair. His face, all dark and bitter, had the sodden look of
a man very tired.

"So!" he said: "Sleeping this way doesn't spoil your dreams. Don't let
me disturb them. I am just going back to Town."

Like a frightened bird, she stayed, not stirring, gazing at his back as
he leaned in the window, till, turning round on her again, he said:

"But remember this: What I can't have, no one else shall! Do you
understand? No one else!" And he bent down close, repeating: "Do you
understand--you bad wife!"

Four year