iews, Stephen had taken some trouble to
convince her he was not the man, and she was convinced.

And being convinced, the vision of her life without him seemed just
then a dismal waste, impossible to face.

In most of the actions of the human being, the physical state of
the person at the time is the principal factor, and May's whole
physical frame, violently over-strained, craved for rest--rest that
the excited brain could not give. Rest was the urgent demand
pressed by the breaking nervous system, and from these two
thoughts--rest, oblivion--grew the dangerous thought of Death.

"Sleep and forget! but I can't," she thought, "and if I do, there
is the horrible awakening;" and again her fatigue suggested all the
past sleepless nights, and the craving of the body urged the brain
to find better means of satisfying it, in the same way as the
appetite for food forces the brain to devise methods for procuring
it.

She walked on in a straight line from Stephen's house, and the road
happened to pass a post-office. May stopped and looked absently
through its lighted, notice-covered panes.

"Send him a few lines," she thought; "because I am so stupid, I
could not tell him enough, and then--"

She did not finish the sentence, but all beyond was blank peace.
She went in, bought a letter-card, and wrote:--

"I could have loved you devotedly, intensely, had you wished
it, but you have made it clear to-night that you do not want
love--at any rate, not mine. I have discovered that I have
courage enough to die, but not to live without you. I am going
to the sea now, and in an hour we shall be separated for ever.
I shall know nothing and you will care nothing, so it seems a
good arrangement. My last thought will be of you, my last
desire for you, my last breath your name."

She fastened it with an untrembling hand, passed out of the office,
posted it, and went straight down a side street to the parade.

The night was still, bound in a frosty silence. The temperature
sank momentarily, and the icy grip intensified in the air.
Overhead the sky was black, and glittered coldly with the winter
stars. Beside and behind her and before her not a living
creature's footstep broke the silence. The sea lay smooth, black,
and motionless on her left, like some huge sleeping monster.

She walked on rapidly: a glorious, vigorous, living, youthful
figure, full of that tremendous activity of brain and p