e were well enough, but they were not for her. She
seemed to see beyond London, beyond the seas, whither she could not say,
and she could not quell the yearning which rose to her lips like a wave,
and over them.

Formerly, when there was choir practice at St. Joseph's, she used to go
there and meet her father, but lately, for some reason which she could
not explain to herself, she had refrained. The thought of this church
had become distasteful to her, and she returned home indifferent to
everything, to music and religion alike. Her eyes turned from the pile
of volumes--part of Bach's interminable works--and all the old
furniture, and she stood at the window and watched the rain dripping
into the patch of black garden in front of the house, surrounded by a
low stone wall. The villas opposite suggested a desolation which found a
parallel in her heart; the sloppy road and the pale brown sky frightened
her, so menacing seemed their monotony. She knew all this suburb; it was
all graven on her mind, and all that ornamental park where she must go,
if it cleared a little, for her afternoon walk. She must tramp round
that park once more. She strove to keep out of her mind its symmetrical
walls, its stone basins, where the swans floated like white china
ornaments, almost as lifeless. But worse even than these afternoons were
the hours between six and eight. For very often her father was detained,
and if he missed the half-past six train he had to come by the half-past
seven, and in those hours of waiting the dusk grew oppressive and
fearful in the music-room. Startled by a strange shadow, she crouched in
her armchair, and when the feeling of dread passed she was weak from
want of food. Why did her father keep her waiting? Hungry, faint and
weary of life, she opened a volume of Bach; but there was no pleasure
for her in the music, and if she opened a volume of songs she had
neither strength nor will to persevere even through the first, and,
rising from the instrument, she walked across the room, stretching her
arms in a feverish despair. She had not eaten for many hours, and out of
the vacuity of the stomach a dimness rose into her eyes. Pressing her
eyes with her hand, she leaned against the door.

One evening she walked into the garden. The silence and damp of the
earth revived her, and the sensation of the cold stone, against which
she was leaning, was agreeable. Little stars speckled a mauve and misty
sky, and out of the mys