Chapter Chapter 55 · Chapter LV

He had told her, the first evening she ever spent at Gardencourt, that

if she should live to suffer enough she might some day see the ghost

with which the old house was duly provided. She apparently had fulfilled

the necessary condition; for the next morning, in the cold, faint

dawn, she knew that a spirit was standing by her bed. She had lain down

without undressing, it being her belief that Ralph would not outlast

the night. She had no inclination to sleep; she was waiting, and such

waiting was wakeful. But she closed her eyes; she believed that as the

night wore on she should hear a knock at her door. She heard no knock,

but at the time the darkness began vaguely to grow grey she started up

from her pillow as abruptly as if she had received a summons. It seemed

to her for an instant that he was standing there--a vague, hovering

figure in the vagueness of the room. She stared a moment; she saw his

white face--his kind eyes; then she saw there was nothing. She was not

afraid; she was only sure. She quitted the place and in her certainty

passed through dark corridors and down a flight of oaken steps that

shone in the vague light of a hall-window. Outside Ralph’s door she

stopped a moment, listening, but she seemed to hear only the hush that

filled it. She opened the door with a hand as gentle as if she were

lifting a veil from the face of the dead, and saw Mrs. Touchett sitting

motionless and upright beside the couch of her son, with one of his

hands in her own. The doctor was on the other side, with poor Ralph’s

further wrist resting in his professional fingers. The two nurses were

at the foot between them. Mrs. Touchett took no notice of Isabel, but

the doctor looked at her very hard; then he gently placed Ralph’s hand

in a proper position, close beside him. The nurse looked at her very

hard too, and no one said a word; but Isabel only looked at what she had

come to see. It was fairer than Ralph had ever been in life, and there

was a strange resemblance to the face of his father, which, six years

before, she had seen lying on the same pillow. She went to her aunt

and put her arm around her; and Mrs. Touchett, who as a general thing

neither invited nor enjoyed caresses, submitted for a moment to this

one, rising, as might be, to take it. But she was stiff and dry-eyed;

her acute white face was terrible.

“Dear Aunt Lydia,” Isabel murmured.

“Go and thank God you’ve no child,” said Mrs. Touchett, disengaging

herself.

Three days after this a considerable number of people found time, at the

height of the London “season,” to take a morning train down to a quiet

station in Berkshire and spend half an hour in a small grey church which

stood within an easy walk. It was in the green burial-place of this

edifice that Mrs. Touchett consigned her son to earth. She stood herself

at the edge of the grave, and Isabel stood beside her; the sexton

himself had not a more practical interest in the scene than Mrs.

Touchett. It was a solemn occasion, but neither a harsh nor a heavy one;

there was a certain geniality in the appearance of things. The weather

had changed to fair; the day, one of the last of the treacherous

May-time, was warm and windless, and the air had the brightness of the

hawthorn and the blackbird. If it was sad to think of poor Touchett, it

was not too sad, since death, for him, had had no violence. He had been

dying so long; he was so ready; everything had been so expected and

prepared. There were tears in Isabel’s eyes, but they were not tears

that blinded. She looked through them at the beauty of the day, the

splendour of nature, the sweetness of the old English churchyard, the

bowed heads of good friends. Lord Warburton was there, and a group

of gentlemen all unknown to her, several of whom, as she afterwards

learned, were connected with the bank; and there were others whom she

knew. Miss Stackpole was among the first, with honest Mr. Bantling

beside her; and Caspar Goodwood, lifting his head higher than the

rest--bowing it rather less. During much of the time Isabel was

conscious of Mr. Goodwood’s gaze; he looked at her somewhat harder than

he usually looked in public, while the others had fixed their eyes upon

the churchyard turf. But she never let him see that she saw him; she

thought of him only to wonder that he was still in England. She found

she had taken for granted that after accompanying Ralph to Gardencourt

he had gone away; she remembered how little it was a country that

pleased him. He was there, however, very distinctly there; and

something in his attitude seemed to say that he was there with a complex

intention. She wouldn’t meet his eyes, though there was doubtless

sympathy in them; he made her rather uneasy. With the dispersal of the

little group he disappeared, and the only person who came to speak to

her--though several spoke to Mrs. Touchett--was Henrietta Stackpole.

Henrietta had been crying.

Ralph had said to Isabel that he hoped she would remain at Gardencourt,

and she made no immediate motion to leave the place. She said to herself

that it was but common charity to stay a little with her aunt. It was

fortunate she had so good a formula; otherwise she might have been

greatly in want of one. Her errand was over; she had done what she had

left her husband to do. She had a husband in a foreign city, counting

the hours of her absence; in such a case one needed an excellent motive.

He was not one of the best husbands, but that didn’t alter the case.

Certain obligations were involved in the very fact of marriage, and were

quite independent of the quantity of enjoyment extracted from it. Isabel

thought of her husband as little as might be; but now that she was at a

distance, beyond its spell, she thought with a kind of spiritual shudder

of Rome. There was a penetrating chill in the image, and she drew

back into the deepest shade of Gardencourt. She lived from day to day,

postponing, closing her eyes, trying not to think. She knew she must

decide, but she decided nothing; her coming itself had not been a

decision. On that occasion she had simply started. Osmond gave no sound

and now evidently would give none; he would leave it all to her. From

Pansy she heard nothing, but that was very simple: her father had told

her not to write.

Mrs. Touchett accepted Isabel’s company, but offered her no assistance;

she appeared to be absorbed in considering, without enthusiasm but

with perfect lucidity, the new conveniences of her own situation. Mrs.

Touchett was not an optimist, but even from painful occurrences she

managed to extract a certain utility. This consisted in the reflexion

that, after all, such things happened to other people and not to

herself. Death was disagreeable, but in this case it was her son’s

death, not her own; she had never flattered herself that her own would

be disagreeable to any one but Mrs. Touchett. She was better off than

poor Ralph, who had left all the commodities of life behind him,

and indeed all the security; since the worst of dying was, to Mrs.

Touchett’s mind, that it exposed one to be taken advantage of. For

herself she was on the spot; there was nothing so good as that. She

made known to Isabel very punctually--it was the evening her son was

buried--several of Ralph’s testamentary arrangements. He had told her

everything, had consulted her about everything. He left her no money;

of course she had no need of money. He left her the furniture of

Gardencourt, exclusive of the pictures and books and the use of the

place for a year; after which it was to be sold. The money produced by

the sale was to constitute an endowment for a hospital for poor persons

suffering from the malady of which he died; and of this portion of the

will Lord Warburton was appointed executor. The rest of his property,

which was to be withdrawn from the bank, was disposed of in various

bequests, several of them to those cousins in Vermont to whom his

father had already been so bountiful. Then there were a number of small

legacies.

“Some of them are extremely peculiar,” said Mrs. Touchett; “he has left

considerable sums to persons I never heard of. He gave me a list, and I

asked then who some of them were, and he told me they were people who at

various times had seemed to like him. Apparently he thought you didn’t

like him, for he hasn’t left you a penny. It was his opinion that you

had been handsomely treated by his father, which I’m bound to say I

think you were--though I don’t mean that I ever heard him complain of

it. The pictures are to be dispersed; he has distributed them about, one

by one, as little keepsakes. The most valuable of the collection goes to

Lord Warburton. And what do you think he has done with his library?

It sounds like a practical joke. He has left it to your friend Miss

Stackpole--‘in recognition of her services to literature.’ Does he mean

her following him up from Rome? Was that a service to literature? It

contains a great many rare and valuable books, and as she can’t carry

it about the world in her trunk he recommends her to sell it at auction.

She will sell it of course at Christie’s, and with the proceeds she’ll

set up a newspaper. Will that be a service to literature?”

This question Isabel forbore to answer, as it exceeded the little

interrogatory to which she had deemed it necessary to submit on her

arrival. Besides, she had never been less interested in literature than

to-day, as she found when she occasionally took down from the shelf one

of the rare and valuable volumes of which Mrs. Touchett had spoken. She

was quite unable to read; her attention had never been so little at her

command. One afternoon, in the library, about a week after the ceremony

in the churchyard, she was trying to fix it for an hour; but her eyes

often wandered from the book in her hand to the open window, which

looked down the long avenue. It was in this way that she saw a modest

vehicle approach the door and perceived Lord Warburton sitting, in

rather an uncomfortable attitude, in a corner of it. He had always had

a high standard of courtesy, and it was therefore not remarkable, under

the circumstances, that he should have taken the trouble to come down

from London to call on Mrs. Touchett. It was of course Mrs. Touchett

he had come to see, and not Mrs. Osmond; and to prove to herself the

validity of this thesis Isabel presently stepped out of the house and

wandered away into the park. Since her arrival at Gardencourt she

had been but little out of doors, the weather being unfavourable for

visiting the grounds. This evening, however, was fine, and at first it

struck her as a happy thought to have come out. The theory I have just

mentioned was plausible enough, but it brought her little rest, and

if you had seen her pacing about you would have said she had a bad

conscience. She was not pacified when at the end of a quarter of an

hour, finding herself in view of the house, she saw Mrs. Touchett emerge

from the portico accompanied by her visitor. Her aunt had evidently

proposed to Lord Warburton that they should come in search of her. She

was in no humour for visitors and, if she had had a chance, would have

drawn back behind one of the great trees. But she saw she had been seen

and that nothing was left her but to advance. As the lawn at Gardencourt

was a vast expanse this took some time; during which she observed that,

as he walked beside his hostess, Lord Warburton kept his hands rather

stiffly behind him and his eyes upon the ground. Both persons apparently

were silent; but Mrs. Touchett’s thin little glance, as she directed it

toward Isabel, had even at a distance an expression. It seemed to say

with cutting sharpness: “Here’s the eminently amenable nobleman you

might have married!” When Lord Warburton lifted his own eyes, however,

that was not what they said. They only said “This is rather awkward, you

know, and I depend upon you to help me.” He was very grave, very proper

and, for the first time since Isabel had known him, greeted her without

a smile. Even in his days of distress he had always begun with a smile.

He looked extremely selfconscious.

“Lord Warburton has been so good as to come out to see me,” said Mrs.

Touchett. “He tells me he didn’t know you were still here. I know he’s

an old friend of yours, and as I was told you were not in the house I

brought him out to see for himself.”

“Oh, I saw there was a good train at 6.40, that would get me back

in time for dinner,” Mrs. Touchett’s companion rather irrelevantly

explained. “I’m so glad to find you’ve not gone.”

“I’m not here for long, you know,” Isabel said with a certain eagerness.

“I suppose not; but I hope it’s for some weeks. You came to England

sooner than--a--than you thought?”

“Yes, I came very suddenly.”

Mrs. Touchett turned away as if she were looking at the condition of the

grounds, which indeed was not what it should be, while Lord Warburton

hesitated a little. Isabel fancied he had been on the point of asking

about her husband--rather confusedly--and then had checked himself. He

continued immitigably grave, either because he thought it becoming in a

place over which death had just passed, or for more personal reasons. If

he was conscious of personal reasons it was very fortunate that he had

the cover of the former motive; he could make the most of that. Isabel

thought of all this. It was not that his face was sad, for that was

another matter; but it was strangely inexpressive.

“My sisters would have been so glad to come if they had known you were

still here--if they had thought you would see them,” Lord Warburton went

on. “Do kindly let them see you before you leave England.”

“It would give me great pleasure; I have such a friendly recollection of

them.”

“I don’t know whether you would come to Lockleigh for a day or two?

You know there’s always that old promise.” And his lordship coloured a

little as he made this suggestion, which gave his face a somewhat more

familiar air. “Perhaps I’m not right in saying that just now; of course

you’re not thinking of visiting. But I meant what would hardly be a

visit. My sisters are to be at Lockleigh at Whitsuntide for five days;

and if you could come then--as you say you’re not to be very long in

England--I would see that there should be literally no one else.”

Isabel wondered if not even the young lady he was to marry would be

there with her mamma; but she did not express this idea.

“Thank you extremely,” she contented herself with saying; “I’m afraid I

hardly know about Whitsuntide.”

“But I have your promise--haven’t I?--for some other time.”

There was an interrogation in this; but Isabel let it pass. She looked

at her interlocutor a moment, and the result of her observation was

that--as had happened before--she felt sorry for him. “Take care you

don’t miss your train,” she said. And then she added: “I wish you every

happiness.”

He blushed again, more than before, and he looked at his watch. “Ah yes,

6.40; I haven’t much time, but I’ve a fly at the door. Thank you very

much.” It was not apparent whether the thanks applied to her having

reminded him of his train or to the more sentimental remark. “Good-bye,

Mrs. Osmond; good-bye.” He shook hands with her, without meeting her

eyes, and then he turned to Mrs. Touchett, who had wandered back to

them. With her his parting was equally brief; and in a moment the two

ladies saw him move with long steps across the lawn.

“Are you very sure he’s to be married?” Isabel asked of her aunt.

“I can’t be surer than he; but he seems sure. I congratulated him, and

he accepted it.”

“Ah,” said Isabel, “I give it up!”--while her aunt returned to the house

and to those avocations which the visitor had interrupted.

She gave it up, but she still thought of it--thought of it while she

strolled again under the great oaks whose shadows were long upon the

acres of turf. At the end of a few minutes she found herself near a

rustic bench, which, a moment after she had looked at it, struck her as

an object recognised. It was not simply that she had seen it before,

nor even that she had sat upon it; it was that on this spot something

important had happened to her--that the place had an air of association.

Then she remembered that she had been sitting there, six years before,

when a servant brought her from the house the letter in which Caspar

Goodwood informed her that he had followed her to Europe; and that when

she had read the letter she looked up to hear Lord Warburton announcing

that he should like to marry her. It was indeed an historical, an

interesting, bench; she stood and looked at it as if it might have

something to say to her. She wouldn’t sit down on it now--she felt

rather afraid of it. She only stood before it, and while she stood the

past came back to her in one of those rushing waves of emotion by which

persons of sensibility are visited at odd hours. The effect of this

agitation was a sudden sense of being very tired, under the influence

of which she overcame her scruples and sank into the rustic seat. I have

said that she was restless and unable to occupy herself; and whether or

no, if you had seen her there, you would have admired the justice of the

former epithet, you would at least have allowed that at this moment

she was the image of a victim of idleness. Her attitude had a singular

absence of purpose; her hands, hanging at her sides, lost themselves in

the folds of her black dress; her eyes gazed vaguely before her.

There was nothing to recall her to the house; the two ladies, in their

seclusion, dined early and had tea at an indefinite hour. How long she

had sat in this position she could not have told you; but the twilight

had grown thick when she became aware that she was not alone. She

quickly straightened herself, glancing about, and then saw what had

become of her solitude. She was sharing it with Caspar Goodwood,

who stood looking at her, a few yards off, and whose footfall on the

unresonant turf, as he came near, she had not heard. It occurred to her

in the midst of this that it was just so Lord Warburton had surprised

her of old.

She instantly rose, and as soon as Goodwood saw he was seen he started

forward. She had had time only to rise when, with a motion that looked

like violence, but felt like--she knew not what, he grasped her by the

wrist and made her sink again into the seat. She closed her eyes; he had

not hurt her; it was only a touch, which she had obeyed. But there was

something in his face that she wished not to see. That was the way he

had looked at her the other day in the churchyard; only at present

it was worse. He said nothing at first; she only felt him close to

her--beside her on the bench and pressingly turned to her. It almost

seemed to her that no one had ever been so close to her as that.

All this, however, took but an instant, at the end of which she had

disengaged her wrist, turning her eyes upon her visitant. “You’ve

frightened me,” she said.

“I didn’t mean to,” he answered, “but if I did a little, no matter.

I came from London a while ago by the train, but I couldn’t come here

directly. There was a man at the station who got ahead of me. He took

a fly that was there, and I heard him give the order to drive here. I

don’t know who he was, but I didn’t want to come with him; I wanted to

see you alone. So I’ve been waiting and walking about. I’ve walked all

over, and I was just coming to the house when I saw you here. There was

a keeper, or someone, who met me; but that was all right, because I

had made his acquaintance when I came here with your cousin. Is that

gentleman gone? Are you really alone? I want to speak to you.” Goodwood

spoke very fast; he was as excited as when they had parted in Rome.

Isabel had hoped that condition would subside; and she shrank into

herself as she perceived that, on the contrary, he had only let out

sail. She had a new sensation; he had never produced it before; it was

a feeling of danger. There was indeed something really formidable in his

resolution. She gazed straight before her; he, with a hand on each knee,

leaned forward, looking deeply into her face. The twilight seemed

to darken round them. “I want to speak to you,” he repeated; “I’ve

something particular to say. I don’t want to trouble you--as I did

the other day in Rome. That was of no use; it only distressed you. I

couldn’t help it; I knew I was wrong. But I’m not wrong now; please

don’t think I am,” he went on with his hard, deep voice melting a moment

into entreaty. “I came here to-day for a purpose. It’s very different.

It was vain for me to speak to you then; but now I can help you.”

She couldn’t have told you whether it was because she was afraid, or

because such a voice in the darkness seemed of necessity a boon; but she

listened to him as she had never listened before; his words dropped deep

into her soul. They produced a sort of stillness in all her being; and

it was with an effort, in a moment, that she answered him. “How can you

help me?” she asked in a low tone, as if she were taking what he had

said seriously enough to make the enquiry in confidence.

“By inducing you to trust me. Now I know--to-day I know. Do you remember

what I asked you in Rome? Then I was quite in the dark. But to-day I

know on good authority; everything’s clear to me to-day. It was a good

thing when you made me come away with your cousin. He was a good man,

a fine man, one of the best; he told me how the case stands for you. He

explained everything; he guessed my sentiments. He was a member of

your family and he left you--so long as you should be in England--to my

care,” said Goodwood as if he were making a great point. “Do you know

what he said to me the last time I saw him--as he lay there where he

died? He said: ‘Do everything you can for her; do everything she’ll let

you.’”

Isabel suddenly got up. “You had no business to talk about me!”

“Why not--why not, when we talked in that way?” he demanded, following

her fast. “And he was dying--when a man’s dying it’s different.” She

checked the movement she had made to leave him; she was listening more

than ever; it was true that he was not the same as that last time. That

had been aimless, fruitless passion, but at present he had an idea,

which she scented in all her being. “But it doesn’t matter!” he

exclaimed, pressing her still harder, though now without touching a hem

of her garment. “If Touchett had never opened his mouth I should have

known all the same. I had only to look at you at your cousin’s funeral

to see what’s the matter with you. You can’t deceive me any more; for

God’s sake be honest with a man who’s so honest with you. You’re the

most unhappy of women, and your husband’s the deadliest of fiends.”

She turned on him as if he had struck her. “Are you mad?” she cried.

“I’ve never been so sane; I see the whole thing. Don’t think it’s

necessary to defend him. But I won’t say another word against him; I’ll

speak only of you,” Goodwood added quickly. “How can you pretend you’re

not heart-broken? You don’t know what to do--you don’t know where to

turn. It’s too late to play a part; didn’t you leave all that behind you

in Rome? Touchett knew all about it, and I knew it too--what it

would cost you to come here. It will have cost you your life? Say it

will”--and he flared almost into anger: “give me one word of truth! When

I know such a horror as that, how can I keep myself from wishing to save

you? What would you think of me if I should stand still and see you

go back to your reward? ‘It’s awful, what she’ll have to pay for

it!’--that’s what Touchett said to me. I may tell you that, mayn’t I? He

was such a near relation!” cried Goodwood, making his queer grim point

again. “I’d sooner have been shot than let another man say those things

to me; but he was different; he seemed to me to have the right. It was

after he got home--when he saw he was dying, and when I saw it too.

I understand all about it: you’re afraid to go back. You’re perfectly

alone; you don’t know where to turn. You can’t turn anywhere; you know

that perfectly. Now it is therefore that I want you to think of _me_.”

“To think of ‘you’?” Isabel said, standing before him in the dusk. The

idea of which she had caught a glimpse a few moments before now loomed

large. She threw back her head a little; she stared at it as if it had

been a comet in the sky.

“You don’t know where to turn. Turn straight to me. I want to persuade

you to trust me,” Goodwood repeated. And then he paused with his shining

eyes. “Why should you go back--why should you go through that ghastly

form?”

“To get away from you!” she answered. But this expressed only a little

of what she felt. The rest was that she had never been loved before. She

had believed it, but this was different; this was the hot wind of the

desert, at the approach of which the others dropped dead, like mere

sweet airs of the garden. It wrapped her about; it lifted her off her

feet, while the very taste of it, as of something potent, acrid and

strange, forced open her set teeth.

At first, in rejoinder to what she had said, it seemed to her that

he would break out into greater violence. But after an instant he was

perfectly quiet; he wished to prove he was sane, that he had reasoned it

all out. “I want to prevent that, and I think I may, if you’ll only for

once listen to me. It’s too monstrous of you to think of sinking back

into that misery, of going to open your mouth to that poisoned air. It’s

you that are out of your mind. Trust me as if I had the care of you. Why

shouldn’t we be happy--when it’s here before us, when it’s so easy? I’m

yours for ever--for ever and ever. Here I stand; I’m as firm as a rock.

What have you to care about? You’ve no children; that perhaps would be

an obstacle. As it is you’ve nothing to consider. You must save what you

can of your life; you mustn’t lose it all simply because you’ve lost a

part. It would be an insult to you to assume that you care for the look

of the thing, for what people will say, for the bottomless idiocy of the

world. We’ve nothing to do with all that; we’re quite out of it; we look

at things as they are. You took the great step in coming away; the next

is nothing; it’s the natural one. I swear, as I stand here, that a woman

deliberately made to suffer is justified in anything in life--in going

down into the streets if that will help her! I know how you suffer, and

that’s why I’m here. We can do absolutely as we please; to whom under

the sun do we owe anything? What is it that holds us, what is it that

has the smallest right to interfere in such a question as this? Such a

question is between ourselves--and to say that is to settle it! Were we

born to rot in our misery--were we born to be afraid? I never knew _you_

afraid! If you’ll only trust me, how little you will be disappointed!

The world’s all before us--and the world’s very big. I know something

about that.”

Isabel gave a long murmur, like a creature in pain; it was as if he were

pressing something that hurt her.

“The world’s very small,” she said at random; she had an immense

desire to appear to resist. She said it at random, to hear herself say

something; but it was not what she meant. The world, in truth, had never

seemed so large; it seemed to open out, all round her, to take the form

of a mighty sea, where she floated in fathomless waters. She had wanted

help, and here was help; it had come in a rushing torrent. I know not

whether she believed everything he said; but she believed just then

that to let him take her in his arms would be the next best thing to her

dying. This belief, for a moment, was a kind of rapture, in which she

felt herself sink and sink. In the movement she seemed to beat with her

feet, in order to catch herself, to feel something to rest on.

“Ah, be mine as I’m yours!” she heard her companion cry. He had suddenly

given up argument, and his voice seemed to come, harsh and terrible,

through a confusion of vaguer sounds.

This however, of course, was but a subjective fact, as the

metaphysicians say; the confusion, the noise of waters, all the rest

of it, were in her own swimming head. In an instant she became aware of

this. “Do me the greatest kindness of all,” she panted. “I beseech you

to go away!”

“Ah, don’t say that. Don’t kill me!” he cried.

She clasped her hands; her eyes were streaming with tears. “As you love

me, as you pity me, leave me alone!”

He glared at her a moment through the dusk, and the next instant she

felt his arms about her and his lips on her own lips. His kiss was like

white lightning, a flash that spread, and spread again, and stayed; and

it was extraordinarily as if, while she took it, she felt each thing in

his hard manhood that had least pleased her, each aggressive fact of his

face, his figure, his presence, justified of its intense identity and

made one with this act of possession. So had she heard of those wrecked

and under water following a train of images before they sink. But when

darkness returned she was free. She never looked about her; she only

darted from the spot. There were lights in the windows of the house;

they shone far across the lawn. In an extraordinarily short time--for

the distance was considerable--she had moved through the darkness (for

she saw nothing) and reached the door. Here only she paused. She looked

all about her; she listened a little; then she put her hand on the

latch. She had not known where to turn; but she knew now. There was a

very straight path.

Two days afterwards Caspar Goodwood knocked at the door of the house in

Wimpole Street in which Henrietta Stackpole occupied furnished lodgings.

He had hardly removed his hand from the knocker when the door was opened

and Miss Stackpole herself stood before him. She had on her hat and

jacket; she was on the point of going out. “Oh, good-morning,” he said,

“I was in hopes I should find Mrs. Osmond.”

Henrietta kept him waiting a moment for her reply; but there was a good

deal of expression about Miss Stackpole even when she was silent. “Pray

what led you to suppose she was here?”

“I went down to Gardencourt this morning, and the servant told me she

had come to London. He believed she was to come to you.”

Again Miss Stackpole held him--with an intention of perfect kindness--in

suspense. “She came here yesterday, and spent the night. But this

morning she started for Rome.”

Caspar Goodwood was not looking at her; his eyes were fastened on the

doorstep. “Oh, she started--?” he stammered. And without finishing

his phrase or looking up he stiffly averted himself. But he couldn’t

otherwise move.

Henrietta had come out, closing the door behind her, and now she put out

her hand and grasped his arm. “Look here, Mr. Goodwood,” she said; “just

you wait!”

On which he looked up at her--but only to guess, from her face, with a

revulsion, that she simply meant he was young. She stood shining at him

with that cheap comfort, and it added, on the spot, thirty years to his

life. She walked him away with her, however, as if she had given him now

the key to patience.