But the convolvulus has budded and bloomed and closed again while you
thought her still, and she dies--the rayed and rosy cup so full of airy
sweetness--she dies in a day.

* * * * *

Hazel got up from her chair by the fire and went restlessly, with a
rustle as of innumerable autumn leaves, to the hall door. She gazed
through the glass, and saw the sad feather-flights of snow wandering
and hesitating, and finally coming to earth. They held to their
individuality as flakes as long as they could, it seemed; but the end
came to all, and they were merged in earth and their own multitudes.

Hazel opened the door and stood on the threshold, so that snow-flakes
flattened themselves on the yellow roses of her dress. Outside there
was no world, only a waste of grey and white. Like leaves on a dead
bird, the wrappings of white grew deeper over Undern. Hazel shivered in
the cold wind off the hill, and saw Undern Pool curdling and thickening
in the frost. No sound came across the outspread country. There were no
roads near Undern except its own cart track; there were no railways
within miles. Nothing moved except the snow-flakes, fulfilling their
relentless destiny of negation. She saw them only, and heard only the
raised voices in the house arguing about herself.

'I mun go,' she said, strong in her spirit of freedom, remote and
withdrawn.

'I mun stay,' she amended, weak in her undefended smallness, and very
tired. She turned back to the fire. But the instinct that had awakened
as childhood died clamoured within her and would not let her rest.