She passed rapidly, and almost with terror, into a misery of remorse.  What had she been doing with this kindest and best of men?  Allowing him to suppose that after a little while she would be quite ready to forget George and be his wife?  That threw her into a fit of helpless crying.  The tears ran down her cheeks as she moved to and fro.  Her George!—­falling out there, in that ghastly No Man’s Land, dying out there, alone, with no one to help, and quiet now in his unknown grave.  And after little more than a year she was to forget him, and be rich and happy with a new lover—­a new husband?

She seemed to herself the basest of women.  Base towards George—­and towards Farrell—­both!  What could she do?—­what must she do?  Oh, she must go away—­she must break it all off!  And looking despairingly round the room, which only an hour before had seemed to her so dear and familiar, she tried to imagine herself in exile from all it represented, cut off from Farrell and from Cicely, left only to her own weak self.

But she must—­she must!  That very evening she must speak to Willy—­she must have it out.  Of course he would urge her to stay there—­he would promise to go away—­and leave her alone.  But that would be too mean, too ungrateful.  She couldn’t banish him from this spot that he loved, where he snatched his few hours—­always now growing fewer—­of rest and pleasure.  No, she must just depart.  Without telling him?  Without warning?  Her will failed her.

She got out her table, with its knitting, and its bundles of prepared work which had arrived that morning from the workroom, and began upon one of them mechanically.  But she was more and more weighed down by a sense of catastrophe—­which was also a sense of passionate shame.  Why, she was George’s wife, still!—­his wife—­for who could know, for certain, that he was dead?  That was what the law meant. Seven years!

* * * * *

She spent the day in a wretched confusion of thoughts and plans.  A telegram from Cicely arrived about midday—­’Can’t get to you till to-morrow.  Willy and Marsworth coming to-day—­Marsworth not till late.’

So any hour might bring Farrell.  She sat desperately waiting for him.  Meanwhile there was a post-card from Bridget saying that she too would probably arrive that evening.

That seemed the last straw.  Bridget would merely think her a fool; Bridget would certainly quarrel with her.  Why, it had been Bridget’s constant object to promote the intimacy with the Farrells, to throw her and Sir William together.  Nelly remembered her own revolts and refusals.  They seemed now so long ago!  In those days it was jealousy for George that filled her, the fierce resolve to let no one so much as dream that she could ever forget him, and to allow no one to give money to George’s wife, for whom George himself had provided, and should still provide.  And at an earlier stage—­after