nd chin distorted, blue eyes
flaming, breast heaving, as if each breath were drawn from lungs that
received no air. And then, as quickly, the fire went out of her; she
sank down on the sofa; covering her face with her arms, rocking to and
fro. She did not cry, but a little moan came from her now and then. And
each one of those sounds was to Lennan like the cry of something he was
murdering. At last he went and sat down on the sofa by her and said:

"Sylvia! Sylvia! Don't! oh! don't!" And she was silent, ceasing to
rock herself; letting him smooth and stroke her. But her face she kept
hidden, and only once she spoke, so low that he could hardly hear: "I
can't--I won't keep you from her." And with the awful feeling that no
words could reach or soothe the wound in that tender heart, he could
only go on stroking and kissing her hands.

It was atrocious--horrible--this that he had done! God knew that he had
not sought it--the thing had come on him. Surely even in her misery she
could see that! Deep down beneath his grief and self-hatred, he knew,
what neither she nor anyone else could know--that he could not have
prevented this feeling, which went back to days before he ever saw
the girl--that no man could have stopped that feeling in himself. This
craving and roving was as much part of him as his eyes and hands, as
overwhelming and natural a longing as his hunger for work, or his need
of the peace that Sylvia gave, and alone could give him. That was the
tragedy--it was all sunk and rooted in the very nature of a man. Since
the girl had come into their lives he was no more unfaithful to his wife
in thought than he had been before. If only she could look into him, see
him exactly as he was, as, without part or lot in the process, he had
been made--then she would understand, and even might not suffer; but she
could not, and he could never make it plain. And solemnly, desperately,
with a weary feeling of the futility of words, he went on trying: Could
she not see? It was all a thing outside him--a craving, a chase after
beauty and life, after his own youth! At that word she looked at him:

"And do you think I don't want my youth back?"

He stopped.

For a woman to feel that her beauty--the brightness of her hair and
eyes, the grace and suppleness of her limbs--were slipping from her and
from the man she loved! Was there anything more bitter?--or any more
sacred duty than not to add to that bitterness, not to push her with