He looked up at her inquiringly....  Strange, short-frocked blue figure looking down at him!  She had a bulging forehead; her brown eyes were tunnelled underneath it.  But what living eyes, what ardent eyes, that blazed up and sank like a fire!  What delicate and exact mirrors of the secret traffic between her soul and the soul of the world!  She had full cheeks, and a large mouth ripe red, inviting and provocative.  In the midst, an absurd small unprominent nose that meant nothing!  Her complexion was divine, surpassing all similes.  To caress that smooth downy cheek (if you looked close you could see the infinitesimal down against the light like an aura on the edge of the silhouette), even to let the gaze dwell on it, what an enchantment!...  She considered herself piquant and comely, and she was not deceived.  She had long hands.

The wind from afar on her cheek reminded her poignantly that she was a prisoner.  She could not go to the clustered village on the left, nor into the saltings on the right, nor even on to the sea-wall where the new rushes and grasses were showing.  All the estuary was barred, and the winding road that mounted the slope towards Colchester.  Her revolt against injustice was savage.  Hatred of her father surged up in her like glittering lava.  She had long since ceased to try to comprehend him.  She despised herself because she was unreasonably afraid of him, ridiculously mute before him.  She could not understand how anybody could be friendly with him—­for was he not notorious?  Yet everywhere he was greeted with respect and smiles, and he would chat at length with all manner of people on a note of mild and smooth cordiality.  He and Miss Ingate would enjoy together the most enormous talks.  She was, however, aware that Miss Ingate’s opinion of him was not very different from her own.  Each time she saw her father and Miss Ingate in communion she would say in her heart to Miss Ingate:  “You are disloyal to me.” ...

Was it possible that she had confided to Miss Ingate her fearful secret?  The conversation appeared to her unreal now.  She went over her plan.  In the afternoon her father was always out, and to-morrow afternoon her mother would be out too.  She would have a few things in a light bag that she could carry—­her mother’s bag!  She would put on her best clothes and a veil from her mother’s wardrobe.  She would take the 4.5 p.m. train.  The stationmaster would be at his tea then.  Only the booking-clerk and the porter would see her, and neither would dare to make an observation.  She would ask for a return ticket to Ipswich; that would allay suspicion, and at Ipswich she would book again.  She had cut out the addresses of the boarding-houses.  She would have to buy things in London.  She knew of two shops—­Harrod’s and Shoolbred’s; she had seen their catalogues.  And the very next morning after arrival she would go to Pitman’s School.  She would change the first of the L5 notes at the station and ask for plenty of silver.