ng.
The tears ran down her cheeks as she moved to and fro. Her
George!--falling out there, in that ghastly No Man's Land, dying out
there, alone, with no one to help, and quiet now in his unknown grave.
And after little more than a year she was to forget him, and be rich and
happy with a new lover--a new husband?

She seemed to herself the basest of women. Base towards George--and
towards Farrell--both! What could she do?--what must she do? Oh, she
must go away--she must break it all off! And looking despairingly round
the room, which only an hour before had seemed to her so dear and
familiar, she tried to imagine herself in exile from all it represented,
cut off from Farrell and from Cicely, left only to her own weak self.

But she must--she _must_! That very evening she must speak to Willy--she
must have it out. Of course he would urge her to stay there--he would
promise to go away--and leave her alone. But that would be too mean, too
ungrateful. She couldn't banish him from this spot that he loved, where
he snatched his few hours--always now growing fewer--of rest and
pleasure. No, she must just depart. Without telling him? Without
warning? Her will failed her.

She got out her table, with its knitting, and its bundles of prepared
work which had arrived that morning from the workroom, and began upon
one of them mechanically. But she was more and more weighed down by a
sense of catastrophe--which was also a sense of passionate shame. Why,
she was George's wife, still!--his _wife_--for who could _know_, for
certain, that he was dead? That was what the law meant. _Seven years_!

* * * * *

She spent the day in a wretched confusion of thoughts and plans. A
telegram from Cicely arrived about midday--'Can't get to you till
to-morrow. Willy and Marsworth coming to-day--Marsworth not till late.'

So any hour might bring Farrell. She sat desperately waiting for him.
Meanwhile there was a post-card from Bridget saying that she too would
probably arrive that evening.

That seemed the last straw. Bridget would merely think her a fool;
Bridget would certainly quarrel with her. Why, it had been Bridget's
constant object to promote the intimacy with the Farrells, to throw her
and Sir William together. Nelly remembered her own revolts and refusals.
They seemed now so long ago! In those days it was jealousy for George
that filled her, the fierce resolve to let no one so much as dream that
she co