hat her eyes could see him everywhere, as a
cat's eyes can see in darkness. That feeling had been with him, more or
less, ever since the last evening of October, the evening she came back
from her summer--grown-up. How long ago? Only six days--was it possible?
Ah, yes! She knew when her spell was weakening, when the current wanted,
as it were, renewing. And about six o'clock--dusk already--without the
least surprise, with only a sort of empty quivering, he heard her knock.
And just behind the closed door, as near as he could get to her, he
stood, holding his breath. He had given his word to Sylvia--of his own
accord had given it. Through the thin wood of the old door he could hear
the faint shuffle of her feet on the pavement, moved a few inches this
way and that, as though supplicating the inexorable silence. He seemed
to see her head, bent a little forward listening. Three times she
knocked, and each time Lennan writhed. It was so cruel! With that
seeing-sense of hers she must know he was there; his very silence would
be telling her--for his silence had its voice, its pitiful breathless
sound. Then, quite distinctly, he heard her sigh, and her footsteps move
away; and covering his face with his hands he rushed to and fro in the
studio, like a madman.

No sound of her any more! Gone! It was unbearable; and, seizing his hat,
he ran out. Which way? At random he ran towards the Square. There she
was, over by the railings; languidly, irresolutely moving towards home.

XIV

But now that she was within reach, he wavered; he had given his
word--was he going to break it? Then she turned, and saw him; and he
could not go back. In the biting easterly wind her face looked small,
and pinched, and cold, but her eyes only the larger, the more full of
witchery, as if beseeching him not to be angry, not to send her away.

"I had to come; I got frightened. Why did you write such a tiny little
note?"

He tried to make his voice sound quiet and ordinary.

"You must be brave, Nell. I have had to tell her."

She clutched at his arm; then drew herself up, and said in her clear,
clipped voice:

"Oh! I suppose she hates me, then!"

"She is terribly unhappy."

They walked a minute, that might have been an hour, without a word; not
round the Square, as he had walked with Oliver, but away from the house.
At last she said in a half-choked voice: "I only want a little bit of
you."

And he answered dully: "In love, there are no li