Mavis’s face hardened.  She repressed an inclination to laugh.  Then she became immersed in a stupor of despair.  She knew that it would have done her a world of good if she had been able to shed tears; but the founts of emotion were dry within her.  She felt as if her heart had withered.  Then, it seemed as if the walls and ceiling of the room were closing in upon her; she had difficulty in breathing; she believed that if she did not get some air she would choke.  She got up without saying a word, opened the door, and went out.  Trivett, at a sign from his wife, rose and followed.

The night was warm and still.  Mavis soon began to feel relief from the stifling sensations which had threatened her.  But this relief only increased her pain, her sensibilities being now only the more capable of suffering.  As Mavis walked up the deserted Broughton Road, her eyes sought the sky, which to-night was bountifully spread with stars.  It occurred to her how it was just another such a night when she had walked home from Llansallas Bay; then, she had fearfully and, at the same time, tenderly held her lover’s hand.  The recollection neither increased nor diminished her pain; she thought of that night with such a supreme detachment of self that it seemed as if her heart were utterly dead.  She turned by the dye factory and stood on the stone bridge which here crosses the Avon.  The blurred reflection of the stars in the slowly moving water caused her eyes again to seek the skies.

Thought Mavis:  “Beyond those myriad lights was heaven, where now was her beloved little one.  At least, he was happy and free from pain, so what cause had she, who loved him, to grieve, when it was written that some day they would be reunited for ever and ever?”

Mavis looked questioningly at the stars.  It would have helped her much if they had been able to betray the slightest consciousness of her longings.  But they made no sign; they twinkled with aloof indifference to the grief that wrung her being.  Distraught with agonised despair, and shadowed by Trivett, she walked up the principal street of the town, now bereft of any sign of life.  Unwittingly, her steps strayed in the direction of the river.  She walked the road lying between the churchyard and the cemetery, opened the wicket gate by the church school, and struck across the well-remembered meadows.  When she came to the river, she stood awhile on the bank and watched the endless procession of water which flowed beneath her.  The movement of the stream seemed, in some measure, to assuage her grief, perhaps because her mind, seeking any means of preservation, seized upon the moving water, this providing the readiest distraction that offered.