from her, his senses ached as they recalled the exquisite movements of her body.  He had only to shut his eyes, and he was aware of the little ripple of her shoulders and the delicate swaying of her hips.  To lie awake in the dark was to see her kneeling at his side, to feel the fragrance of her thick braid of hair flattened and warmed by her sleep, and the light touch of her hands as they covered him.  And before that memory his shame still burnt deeper than his desire.

But this Lucia had no desire for him and no pity.  Her countenance, seen even in dreams, expressed a calm but immutable repugnance.  No wonder, for she was only acquainted with the pitiably inadequate sample of him introduced to her as Mr. Rickman of Rickman’s.  He was aware that she belonged exclusively not only to Jewdwine’s class, but to Jewdwine himself in some way (a way unspeakably disagreeable to contemplate).  If he was not to think of her as enduring the abominations of poverty, he must think of her as married to Jewdwine.  Married to Jewdwine, she would make an end of his friendship as she had made an end of his peace of mind.  There had been moments, at the first, when he had felt a fierce and unforgiving rage against her for the annoyance that she caused him.

But now, dividing the host of turbulent and tormenting memories, there appeared a different Lucia, an invincible but intimate presence that brought with it a sense of deliverance and consolation.  It was Lucia herself that saved him from Lucia.  Her eyes were full of discernment and of an infinite tenderness and compassion.  They kindled in him the desire that fulfils itself in its own utterance.

That this Lucia was not wholly the creature of his imagination he was assured by his memory of certain passages in his life at Harmouth, a memory that had all the vividness and insistence of the other.  It was the Lucia he had known before the other Lucia, the Lucia who had divined and would divine him still.  In a way she was more real than the other, more real than flesh and blood, even as that part of him by which he apprehended her was more real than the rest.  From her he was not and could not be divided; they belonged to each other, and by no possibility could he think of this Lucia as married to Jewdwine, or of his friendship for Jewdwine as in anyway affected by her.  He was hers by right of her perfect comprehension of him; for such comprehension was of the nature of possession.  It was also an assurance of her forgiveness, if indeed she had anything to forgive.  He had not wronged her; it was the other Lucia he had wronged.  In all this he never once thought of her as his inspiration.  She would not have desired him to think of her so, being both too humble and too proud to claim any part in the genius she divined.  But she could not repudiate all connection with it, because it was in the moments when his genius was most dominant that he had this untroubled assurance of her presence.