vacation, she had revelled so in his three queer little letters,
half-shy, half-confidential; kissed them, and worn them in her dress!
And in return had written him long, perfectly correct epistles in her
still rather quaint English. She had never let him guess her feelings;
the idea that he might shocked her inexpressibly. When the summer term
began, life seemed to be all made up of thoughts of him. If, ten years
ago, her baby had lived, if its cruel death--after her agony--had not
killed for good her wish to have another; if for years now she had not
been living with the knowledge that she had no warmth to expect, and
that love was all over for her; if life in the most beautiful of all old
cities had been able to grip her--there would have been forces to check
this feeling. But there was nothing in the world to divert the current.
And she was so brimful of life, so conscious of vitality running to
sheer waste. Sometimes it had been terrific, that feeling within her,
of wanting to live--to find outlet for her energy. So many hundreds
of lonely walks she had taken during all these years, trying to lose
herself in Nature--hurrying alone, running in the woods, over the
fields, where people did not come, trying to get rid of that sense of
waste, trying once more to feel as she had felt when a girl, with the
whole world before her. It was not for nothing that her figure was
superb, her hair so bright a brown, her eyes so full of light. She
had tried many distractions. Work in the back streets, music, acting,
hunting; given them up one after the other; taken to them passionately
again. They had served in the past. But this year they had not
served.... One Sunday, coming from confession unconfessed, she had faced
herself. It was wicked. She would have to kill this feeling--must fly
from this boy who moved her so! If she did not act quickly, she would
be swept away. And then the thought had come: Why not? Life was to be
lived--not torpidly dozed through in this queer cultured place, where
age was in the blood! Life was for love--to be enjoyed! And she would