the same he had left twenty days ago?  They seemed to exist now only in so far as she might come to see them—­come and sit in such a chair, and drink out of such a cup, and let him put this cushion for her back, and that footstool for her feet.  And so vividly could he see her lying back in that chair looking across at him, that he could hardly believe she had never yet sat there.  It was odd how—­without any resolution taken, without admission that their love could not remain platonic, without any change in their relations, save one humble kiss and a few whispered words—­everything was changed.  A month or so ago, if he had wanted, he would have gone at once calmly to her house.  It would have seemed harmless, and quite natural.  Now it was impossible to do openly the least thing that strict convention did not find desirable.  Sooner or later they would find him stepping over convention, and take him for what he was not—­a real lover!  A real lover!  He knelt down before the empty chair and stretched out his arms.  No substance—­no warmth—­no fragrance—­nothing!  Longing that passed through air, as the wind through grass.

He went to the little round window, which overlooked the river.  The last evening of May; gloaming above the water, dusk resting in the trees, and the air warm!  Better to be out, and moving in the night, out in the ebb and flow of things, among others whose hearts were beating, than stay in this place that without her was so cold and meaningless.

Lamps—­the passion-fruit of towns—­were turning from pallor to full orange, and the stars were coming out.  Half-past nine!  At ten o’clock, and not before, he would walk past her house.  To have this something to look forward to, however furtive and barren, helped.  But on a Saturday night there would be no sitting at the House.  Cramier would be at home; or they would both be out; or perhaps have gone down to their river cottage.  Cramier!  What cruel demon had presided over that marring of her life!  Why had he never met her till after she had bound herself to this man!  From a negative contempt for one who was either not sensitive enough to recognize that his marriage was a failure, or not chivalrous enough to make that failure bear as little hardly as possible on his wife, he had come already to jealous hatred as of a monster.  To be face to face with Cramier in a mortal conflict could alone have satisfied his feeling. . . .  Yet he was a young man by nature gentle!

His heart beat desperately as he approached that street—­one of those little old streets, so beautiful, that belonged to a vanished London.  It was very narrow, there was no shelter; and he thought confusedly of what he could say, if met in this remote backwater that led nowhere.  He would tell some lie, no doubt.  Lies would now be his daily business.  Lies and hatred, those violent things of life, would come to seem quite natural, in the violence of his love.