hold work, for it was not possible for
her to keep her mind upon it. Nor was there sufficient employment
to be found in the house to engage all her time.

Do what she would, make for herself occupation, there was still
space in which to muse and to torment herself with her thoughts.
Whilst her hands were engaged she craved for leisure in which to
think; when unemployed, the ferment within rendered idleness
intolerable.

When the work of the house was accomplished, she went to the
fountain where she had been drawn by Iver, and there saw again
the glowing brown of his eyes fixed on her, and reheard the tones
of his voice addressing her. Then she would start as though stung
by a wasp and go along the track up the Punch-Bowl, recalling
every detail of her walk with Iver, and feeling again his kiss
upon her lips. She tried to forget him; with a resolution of which
she was capable she shut against his entry every door of her heart.
But she found it was impossible to exclude the thoughts of him.
Had she not looked up to him from early childhood, and idolized
him? She had been accustomed to think of him, to talk of him daily
to his mother, after he had left the Ship. That mother who had
forcibly separated her from him had herself ingrafted Iver into
her inmost thoughts, made of him an integral portion of her mind.
She had been taught by Mrs. Verstage to bring him into all her
dreams of the future, as a factor without which that future would
be void and valueless, She had, indeed, never dreamed of him as a
lover, a husband; nevertheless to Mehetabel the future had always
been associated in a vague, yet very real, manner with Iver. His
return was to inaugurate the epoch of a new and joyous existence.
It was not practicable for her to pluck out of her heart this idea,
which had thrust its fibres through every layer and into every
corner of her mind. Those fibres were now thrilling with vitality,
asserting a vigorous life.

She asked herself the same question that had presented itself to
his mind, what if Iver had returned one day, one hour, before he
actually did? Then her marriage with Jonas would have been made
impossible. The look into his eyes, the pressure of his hand would
have bound her to him for evermore.

"Why, why, and oh why!" with a cry of pain, "had he not returned
in time to save her?"

"Why, why, and oh why!" with blood from her heart, "did he return
at all when too late to save her?"

Mehetabel had a cle