She went to her room.  Elizabeth, who shared it, was already asleep, or pretending to be asleep.  Then Beatrice undressed and got into bed, but rest she could not.  It was “only good-night,” a last good-night.  He was going away—­back to his wife, back to the great rushing world, and to the life in which she had no share.  Very soon he would forget her.  Other interests would arise, other women would become his friends, and he would forget the Welsh girl who had attracted him for a while, or remember her only as the companion of a rough adventure.  What did it mean?  Why was her heart so sore?  Why had she felt as though she should die when they told her that he was dead?

Then the answer rose in her breast.  She loved him; it was useless to deny the truth—­she loved him body, and heart and soul, with all her mind and all her strength.  She was his, and his alone—­to-day, to-morrow, and for ever.  He might go from her sight, she might never, never see him more, but love him she always must.  And he was married!

Well, it was her misfortune; it could not affect the solemn truth.  What should she do now, how should she endure her life when her eyes no longer saw his eyes, and her ears never heard his voice?  She saw the future stretch itself before her as a vision.  She saw herself forgotten by this man whom she loved, or from time to time remembered only with a faint regret.  She saw herself growing slowly old, her beauty fading yearly from her face and form, companioned only by the love that grows not old.  Oh, it was bitter, bitter! and yet she would not have it otherwise.  Even in her pain she felt it better to have found this deep and ruinous joy, to have wrestled with the Angel and been worsted, than never to have looked upon his face.  If she could only know that what she gave was given back again, that he loved her as she loved him, she would be content.  She was innocent, she had never tried to draw him to her; she had used no touch or look, no woman’s arts or lures such as her beauty placed at her command.  There had been no word spoken, scarcely a meaning glance had passed between them, nothing but frank and free companionship as of man with man.  She knew he did not love his wife and that his wife did not love him—­this she could see.  But she had never tried to win him from her, and though she sinned in thought, though her heart was guilty—­oh, her hands were clean!

Her restlessness overcame her.  She could no longer lie in bed.  Elizabeth, watching through her veil of sleep, saw Beatrice rise, put on a wrapper, and, going to the window, throw it wide.  At first she thought of interfering, for Elizabeth was a prudent person and did not like draughts; but her sister’s movements excited her curiosity, and she refrained.  Beatrice sat down on the foot of her bed, and leaning her arm upon the window-sill looked out upon the lovely quiet night.  How dark the pine trees massed against the sky; how soft was the whisper of the sea, and how vast the heaven through which the stars sailed on.