Marion should not have lived in a room so full of light.  The tragic point of her was pressed home too well.  The spectator must forget his own fate in looking on this fine ravaged landscape and wondering what extremities of weather had made it what it was, and how such a noble atmosphere should hang over conformations not of the simple kind associated with nobility but subtle as villainy.  Ellen knew that she would never have a life of her own here.  She would all the time be trying to think out what had happened to Marion.  She would never be able to look at events for what they were in themselves and in relation to the destiny she was going to make with Richard; but would wonder, if they were delights, whether their delightfulness would not seem heartless as laughter in a house of mourning to this woman whose delight lay in a grave, and if they were sorrows, whether coming to a woman who had wept so much they would not extort some last secretion more agonising than a common tear.

“But she is old!  She will die!” she thought, aghast at this tragic tyranny.  “Mother died!” she assured herself hopefully.  Instantly she was appalled at her thoughts.  She was ashamed at having had such an ill wish about this middle-aged woman who was sitting there rather lumpishly in an armchair and evidently, from her vague wandering glance and the twist of her eyebrows and her mouth, trying to think of something nice to say and regretting that she failed.  And as she looked at her and her repentance changed into a marvel that this stunned and stubborn woman should be the wonderful Marion of whom Richard spoke, she realised that her death was the event that she had to fear above all others possible in life.  For she did not know what would happen to Richard if his mother died.  He cared for her inordinately.  When he spoke of her, black fire would burn in his eyes, and after a few sentences he would fall silent and look away from Ellen and, she was sure, forget her, for he would then stretch out for her hand and give it an insincere and mechanical patting which, though at any other time his touch refreshed her veins, she found irritating.  If his mother died his grief would of course be as inordinate.  He would turn on her a face hostile with preoccupation and would go out to wander on some stupendous mountain system of vast and complicated sorrows.  Not even death would stop this woman’s habit of excessive living.

Ellen shivered, and rose and looked at the bookcases.  The violent order characteristic of the household had polished the glass doors so brightly that between her and the books there floated those intrusive clouds, the aggressive marshes.  She went and stood by the fire.

“You look tired,” said Marion timidly.

“Yes, I’m tired.  Do you know, I’m feeling quite fanciful....  It’s just tiredness.”

“You’d better go and lie down.”

“Oh no, I would just lie and think.  I feel awful restless.”