as still there. I thought she had gone up long before. But there
was her black slender figure, her white face under the roses of her hat.
She stood on the edge of the pavement as people stand on the bank of a
stream, very still, as if waiting--or as if unconscious of where she was.
The three dismal, sodden loafers (I could see them too; they hadn't
budged an inch) seemed to me to be watching her. Which was horrible.

Meantime Fyne was telling me rather remarkable things--for him. He
declared first it was a mercy in a sense. Then he asked me if it were
not real madness, to saddle one's existence with such a perpetual
reminder. The daily existence. The isolated sea-bound existence. To
bring such an additional strain into the solitude already trying enough
for two people was the craziest thing. Undesirable relations were bad
enough on shore. One could cut them or at least forget their existence
now and then. He himself was preparing to forget his brother-in-law's
existence as much as possible.

That was the general sense of his remarks, not his exact words. I
thought that his wife's brother's existence had never been very
embarrassing to him but that now of course he would have to abstain from
his allusions to the "son of the poet--you know." I said "yes, yes" in
the pauses because I did not want him to turn round; and all the time I
was watching the girl intently. I thought I knew now what she meant with
her--"He was most generous." Yes. Generosity of character may carry a
man through any situation. But why didn't she go then to her generous
man? Why stand there as if clinging to this solid earth which she surely
hated as one must hate the place where one has been tormented, hopeless,
unhappy? Suddenly she stirred. Was she going to cross over? No. She
turned and began to walk slowly close to the curbstone, reminding me of
the time when I discovered her walking near the edge of a ninety-foot
sheer drop. It was the same impression, the same carriage, straight,
slim, with rigid head and the two hands hanging lightly clasped in
front--only now a small sunshade was dangling from them. I saw something
fateful in that deliberate pacing towards the inconspicuous door with the
words _Hotel Entrance_ on the glass panels.

She was abreast of it now and I thought that she would stop again; but
no! She swerved rigidly--at the moment there was no one near her; she
had that bit of pavement to herself--with inan