He stood a moment, hesitating, by the rails of the old church.  Black, white-veined, with shadowy summits, in that half darkness, it was like some gigantic vision.  Mystery itself seemed modelled there.  He turned and walked quickly down the street close to the houses on the further side.  The windows of her house were lighted!  So, she was not away!  Dim light in the dining-room, lights in the room above—­her bedroom, doubtless.  Was there no way to bring her to the window, no way his spirit could climb up there and beckon hers out to him?  Perhaps she was not there, perhaps it was but a servant taking up hot water.  He was at the end of the street by now, but to leave without once more passing was impossible.  And this time he went slowly, his head down, feigning abstraction, grudging every inch of pavement, and all the time furtively searching that window with the light behind the curtains.  Nothing!  Once more he was close to the railings of the church, and once more could not bring himself to go away.  In the little, close, deserted street, not a soul was moving, not even a cat or dog; nothing alive but many discreet, lighted windows.  Like veiled faces, showing no emotion, they seemed to watch his indecision.  And he thought:  “Ah, well!  I dare say there are lots like me.  Lots as near, and yet as far away!  Lots who have to suffer!” But what would he not have given for the throwing open of those curtains.  Then, suddenly scared by an approaching figure, he turned and walked away.

X

At three o’clock next day he called.

In the middle of her white drawing-room, whose latticed window ran the whole length of one wall, stood a little table on which was a silver jar full of early larkspurs, evidently from her garden by the river.  And Lennan waited, his eyes fixed on those blossoms so like to little blue butterflies and strange-hued crickets, tethered to the pale green stems.  In this room she passed her days, guarded from him.  Once a week, at most, he would be able to come there—­ once a week for an hour or two of the hundred and sixty-eight hours that he longed to be with her.

And suddenly he was conscious of her.  She had come in without sound, and was standing by the piano, so pale, in her cream-white dress, that her eyes looked jet black.  He hardly knew that face, like a flower closed against cold.

What had he done?  What had happened in these five days to make her like this to him?  He took her hands and tried to kiss them; but she said quickly: 

“He’s in!”

At that he stood silent, looking into that face, frozen to a dreadful composure, on the breaking up of which his very life seemed to depend.  At last he said: 

“What is it?  Am I nothing to you, after all?”

But as soon as he had spoken he saw that he need not have asked, and flung his arms round her.  She clung to him with desperation; then freed herself, and said: