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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The sun had gone down, and there wasa reddish glow.
The rector backed into the curtains, as if the girl menaced himwith something
fearful.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>It was aback room with two windows, one on each
side the great chimney-flue. He laid hishand on this shivering mound, as if for
company. Her heart, in itsstroke, now rang hard as his hammer upon his copper,
beatingagainst circumstances. The rector and the two girls stayed on at the
Framleys, till a newhome could be found. There was a little oval brass plate, with a
queer figure like apalm-tree beaten upon it.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Then she looked at him, and her facewas more
puzzled than anything.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>But it was more remote, the boldness was
diminished.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>It was Bob Framley who said:You know, I think that
gipsy deserves a medal. I suppose theres nobody in the otherrooms?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The few March days were lovely,and she let them
slip.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>It fell like the slaves collar over his
neck,finally. He dragged her nearer till her one hand caught his leg.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>She usually came for lunch, and left after anearly
tea. Oh ICANT cry for the Mater, now Yvette is spared!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>There was a little oval brass plate, with a queer
figure like apalm-tree beaten upon it. The fear,the great cold fear of the
base-born, her father, everything humanand swarming. She-who-was-Cynthia had
beenlike this: a snowflower. She lived as usual, went out to her friends, to
parties, and dancedwith the undiminished Leo.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>And she felt too lazy, too lazy, too
lazy.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Ahusband was never more than a semicasual
thing!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Almost she could have found in her heartto go with
him, and be a pariah gipsy-woman. Before she could think twice, it was near, a
roaring cliff ofwater.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>He was partly flattered, secretly triumphant,but
abjectedly. She would live on like these higher reptiles, in a state ofsemi-coma,
forever.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>While thegleam of spring sun lasted, she would be
out of doors. He looked at her in hate, as if he could kill her. It always had been
one of thecompressed sort. The vice-like grip of his arms round her seemed to her
the onlystable point in her consciousness. Time being, after all, only the current
of the soul in its flow.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>He was powerless against the lowest insinuations
ofhis own mind.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>And again she looked at the swollen river breaking
angrily as itcame round the bend.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>While thegleam of spring sun lasted, she would be
out of doors. And again she looked at the swollen river breaking angrily as itcame
round the bend.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>It was March, andsunny weather, after unheard-of
rain. But still there came asmell of sulphur from far-away steelworks, out of the
steel-bluesky. </FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>