om he had run in and out of as a boy.
The familiar furniture, the signs and tokens of Audrey's daily presence,
the old-fashioned knick-knacks which had delighted her mother's heart,
all were gone. His aunt's portrait was no longer there; in its place
hung the photogravure of the Madonna di San Sisto. Instead of the cosy
corner where he had lain at Audrey's feet his last night in England,
there stood a polished rosewood secretary, thrown open, showing its
empty pigeon-holes. Everywhere he looked it was the same; there were new
things all around him. If he could have read their secret he would have
seen that that room was the picture of Audrey's soul; the persons who
had by turns taken possession of it had left there each one the traces
of his power. If you could have cut a vertical section through Audrey's
soul, you would have found it built up in successive layers of soul.
When you had dug through Wyndham, you came to Ted; when you had got
through Ted, you came upon Hardy, the oldest formation of all. The room
was instructive as a museum filled with the records of these changes.
But the specimens were badly arranged, recent deposits lying side by
side with relics of an earlier period: thus the floor was covered with
the bearskin given by Hardy and the Persian rugs laid down during the
Art age. The rosewood secretary and a little revolving book-case by
Audrey's chair marked the change wrought by Wyndham. They were part of
modern history and the memory of man. Hardy, in the midst of these
curiosities of natural science, was like a lay visitor without a guide:
he admired, he wondered, he recognised an object here and there, but of
what it all meant he had not the ghost of an idea.

He left off wondering, and waited, listening for the feet that used to
fall so lightly on the stairs.

At last the door opened softly, and Audrey stood before him. But she
stood still, looking at him as if uncertain whether to go or stay.

"Audrey!" His face lit up with joy, his heart bounded.

"How do you do, Vincent?"

He held out his arms, and she came to him slowly, without a word. She
let him hold her for an instant, closing her eyes to hide the fear in
them; let him lift her veil and kiss her cheeks and mouth. Then she
turned her face away, put out her hands against his chest, and pushed
him from her.

"Audrey! What have I done?"

"Oh! I don't know, I don't know!"

She walked away to the looking-glass over the chimneypiece, and to