"Just cut flowers? This way, then." The florist unlocked a glass
door and led him down a moist green aisle. The hot air was choked
with the scent of white azaleas, white lilies, white lilacs; all
the flowers were white; they were like a prolongation, a mystical
efflorescence, of the long rows of marble tombstones, and their
perfume seemed to cover an odor of decay. The rich atmosphere
made Glennard dizzy. As he leaned in the doorpost, waiting for
the flowers, he had a penetrating sense of Margaret Aubyn's
nearness--not the imponderable presence of his inner vision, but a
life that beat warm in his arms. . . .

The sharp air caught him as he stepped out into it again. He
walked back and scattered the flowers over the grave. The edges
of the white petals shrivelled like burnt paper in the cold; and
as he watched them the illusion of her nearness faded, shrank back
frozen.



XII


The motive of his visit to the cemetery remained undefined save as
a final effort of escape from his wife's inexpressive acceptance
of his shame. It seemed to him that as long as he could keep
himself alive to that shame he would not wholly have succumbed to
its consequences. His chief fear was that he should become the
creature of his act. His wife's indifference degraded him; it
seemed to put him on a level with his dishonor. Margaret Aubyn
would have abhorred the deed in proportion to her pity for the