that these springs had existed before love had come, and would flow,
perchance, after it had departed. Now she understood his anger; it was
like the anger of a fiercely rushing river striving to break a dam and
invade the lands below with devastating floods. All these months the
waters had been mounting . . . .

Turning at length from the consideration of this figure, she asked
herself whether, if with her present knowledge she had her choice to make
over again, she would have chosen differently. The answer was a startling
negative. She loved him. Incomprehensible, unreasonable, and un reasoning
sentiment! That she had received a wound, she knew; whether it were
mortal, or whether it would heal and leave a scar, she could not say. One
salient, awful fact she began gradually to realize, that if she sank back
upon the pillows she was lost. Little it would profit her to save her
body. She had no choice between her present precarious foothold and the
abyss, and wounded as she was she would have to fight. There was no
retreat:

She sat up, and presently got to her feet and went to the window and
stared through the panes until she distinguished the blue whiteness of
the fallen snow on her little balcony. The night, despite the clouds, had
a certain luminous quality. Then she drew the curtains, searched for the
switch, and flooded the room with a soft glow--that beautiful room in
which he had so proudly installed her four months before. She smoothed
the bed, and walking to the mirror gazed intently at her face, and then
she bathed it. Afterwards she opened her window again, admitting a flurry
of snow, and stood for some minutes breathing in the sharp air.

Three quarters of an hour later she was dressed and descending the
stairs, and as she entered the library dinner was announced. Let us spare