Chapter XVIII

by Virginia Woolf

　　But other passengers were approaching Lincoln meanwhile by other roadson foot. A county town draws the inhabitants of all vicarages, farms,country houses, and wayside cottages, within a radius of ten miles atleast, once or twice a week to its streets; and among them, on thisoccasion, were Ralph Denham and Mary Datchet. They despised the roads,and took their way across the fields; and yet, from their appearance,it did not seem as if they cared much where they walked so long as theway did not actually trip them up. When they left the Vicarage, theyhad begun an argument which swung their feet along so rhythmically intime with it that they covered the ground at over four miles an hour,and saw nothing of the hedgerows, the swelling plowland, or the mildblue sky. What they saw were the Houses of Parliament and theGovernment Offices in Whitehall. They both belonged to the class whichis conscious of having lost its birthright in these great structuresand is seeking to build another kind of lodging for its own notion oflaw and government. Purposely, perhaps, Mary did not agree with Ralph;she loved to feel her mind in conflict with his, and to be certainthat he spared her female judgment no ounce of his male muscularity.He seemed to argue as fiercely with her as if she were his brother.They were alike, however, in believing that it behooved them to takein hand the repair and reconstruction of the fabric of England. Theyagreed in thinking that nature has not been generous in the endowmentof our councilors. They agreed, unconsciously, in a mute love for themuddy field through which they tramped, with eyes narrowed close bythe concentration of their minds. At length they drew breath, let theargument fly away into the limbo of other good arguments, and, leaningover a gate, opened their eyes for the first time and looked aboutthem. Their feet tingled with warm blood and their breath rose insteam around them. The bodily exercise made them both feel more directand less self-conscious than usual, and Mary, indeed, was overcome bya sort of light-headedness which made it seem to her that it matteredvery little what happened next. It mattered so little, indeed, thatshe felt herself on the point of saying to Ralph:"I love you; I shall never love anybody else. Marry me or leave me;think what you like of me--I don't care a straw." At the moment,however, speech or silence seemed immaterial, and she merely clappedher hands together, and looked at the distant woods with the rust-likebloom on their brown, and the green and blue landscape through thesteam of her own breath. It seemed a mere toss-up whether she said, "Ilove you," or whether she said, "I love the beech-trees," or only "Ilove--I love.""Do you know, Mary," Ralph suddenly interrupted her, "I've made up mymind."Her indifference must have been superficial, for it disappeared atonce. Indeed, she lost sight of the trees, and saw her own hand uponthe topmost bar of the gate with extreme distinctness, while he wenton:"I've made up my mind to chuck my work and live down here. I want youto tell me about that cottage you spoke of. However, I supposethere'll be no difficulty about getting a cottage, will there?" Hespoke with an assumption of carelessness as if expecting her todissuade him.She still waited, as if for him to continue; she was convinced that insome roundabout way he approached the subject of their marriage."I can't stand the office any longer," he proceeded. "I don't knowwhat my family will say; but I'm sure I'm right. Don't you think so?""Live down here by yourself?" she asked."Some old woman would do for me, I suppose," he replied. "I'm sick ofthe whole thing," he went on, and opened the gate with a jerk. Theybegan to cross the next field walking side by side."I tell you, Mary, it's utter destruction, working away, day afterday, at stuff that doesn't matter a damn to any one. I've stood eightyears of it, and I'm not going to stand it any longer. I suppose thisall seems to you mad, though?"By this time Mary had recovered her self-control."No. I thought you weren't happy," she said."Why did you think that?" he asked, with some surprise."Don't you remember that morning in Lincoln's Inn Fields?" she asked."Yes," said Ralph, slackening his pace and remembering Katharine andher engagement, the purple leaves stamped into the path, the whitepaper radiant under the electric light, and the hopelessness whichseemed to surround all these things."You're right, Mary," he said, with something of an effort, "though Idon't know how you guessed it."She was silent, hoping that he might tell her the reason of hisunhappiness, for his excuses had not deceived her."I was unhappy--very unhappy," he repeated. Some six weeks separatedhim from that afternoon when he had sat upon the Embankment watchinghis visions dissolve in mist as the waters swam past and the sense ofhis desolation still made him shiver. He had not recovered in theleast from that depression. Here was an opportunity for making himselfface it, as he felt that he ought to; for, by this time, no doubt, itwas only a sentimental ghost, better exorcised by ruthless exposure tosuch an eye as Mary's, than allowed to underlie all his actions andthoughts as had been the case ever since he first saw KatharineHilbery pouring out tea. He must begin, however, by mentioning hername, and this he found it impossible to do. He persuaded himself thathe could make an honest statement without speaking her name; hepersuaded himself that his feeling had very little to do with her."Unhappiness is a state of mind," he said, "by which I mean that it isnot necessarily the result of any particular cause."This rather stilted beginning did not please him, and it became moreand more obvious to him that, whatever he might say, his unhappinesshad been directly caused by Katharine."I began to find my life unsatisfactory," he started afresh. "Itseemed to me meaningless." He paused again, but felt that this, at anyrate, was true, and that on these lines he could go on."All this money-making and working ten hours a day in an office,what's it for? When one's a boy, you see, one's head is so full ofdreams that it doesn't seem to matter what one does. And if you'reambitious, you're all right; you've got a reason for going on. Now myreasons ceased to satisfy me. Perhaps I never had any. That's verylikely now I come to think of it. (What reason is there for anything,though?) Still, it's impossible, after a certain age, to take oneselfin satisfactorily. And I know what carried me on"--for a good reasonnow occurred to him--"I wanted to be the savior of my family and allthat kind of thing. I wanted them to get on in the world. That was alie, of course--a kind of self-glorification, too. Like most people, Isuppose, I've lived almost entirely among delusions, and now I'm atthe awkward stage of finding it out. I want another delusion to go onwith. That's what my unhappiness amounts to, Mary."There were two reasons that kept Mary very silent during this speech,and drew curiously straight lines upon her face. In the first place,Ralph made no mention of marriage; in the second, he was not speakingthe truth."I don't think it will be difficult to find a cottage," she said, withcheerful hardness, ignoring the whole of this statement. "You've got alittle money, haven't you? Yes," she concluded, "I don't see why itshouldn't be a very good plan."They crossed the field in complete silence. Ralph was surprised by herremark and a little hurt, and yet, on the whole, rather pleased. Hehad convinced himself that it was impossible to lay his casetruthfully before Mary, and, secretly, he was relieved to find that hehad not parted with his dream to her. She was, as he had always foundher, the sensible, loyal friend, the woman he trusted; whose sympathyhe could count upon, provided he kept within certain limits. He wasnot displeased to find that those limits were very clearly marked.When they had crossed the next hedge she said to him:"Yes, Ralph, it's time you made a break. I've come to the sameconclusion myself. Only it won't be a country cottage in my case;it'll be America. America!" she cried. "That's the place for me!They'll teach me something about organizing a movement there, and I'llcome back and show you how to do it."If she meant consciously or unconsciously to belittle the seclusionand security of a country cottage, she did not succeed; for Ralph'sdetermination was genuine. But she made him visualize her in her owncharacter, so that he looked quickly at her, as she walked a little infront of him across the plowed field; for the first time that morninghe saw her independently of him or of his preoccupation withKatharine. He seemed to see her marching ahead, a rather clumsy butpowerful and independent figure, for whose courage he felt thegreatest respect."Don't go away, Mary!" he exclaimed, and stopped."That's what you said before, Ralph," she returned, without looking athim. "You want to go away yourself and you don't want me to go away.That's not very sensible, is it?""Mary," he cried, stung by the remembrance of his exacting anddictatorial ways with her, "what a brute I've been to you!"It took all her strength to keep the tears from springing, and tothrust back her assurance that she would forgive him till Doomsday ifhe chose. She was preserved from doing so only by a stubborn kind ofrespect for herself which lay at the root of her nature and forbadesurrender, even in moments of almost overwhelming passion. Now, whenall was tempest and high-running waves, she knew of a land where thesun shone clear upon Italian grammars and files of docketed papers.Nevertheless, from the skeleton pallor of that land and the rocks thatbroke its surface, she knew that her life there would be harsh andlonely almost beyond endurance. She walked steadily a little in frontof him across the plowed field. Their way took them round the verge ofa wood of thin trees standing at the edge of a steep fold in the land.Looking between the tree-trunks, Ralph saw laid out on the perfectlyflat and richly green meadow at the bottom of the hill a small graymanor-house, with ponds, terraces, and clipped hedges in front of it,a farm building or so at the side, and a screen of fir-trees risingbehind, all perfectly sheltered and self-sufficient. Behind the housethe hill rose again, and the trees on the farther summit stood uprightagainst the sky, which appeared of a more intense blue between theirtrunks. His mind at once was filled with a sense of the actualpresence of Katharine; the gray house and the intense blue sky gavehim the feeling of her presence close by. He leant against a tree,forming her name beneath his breath:"Katharine, Katharine," he said aloud, and then, looking round, sawMary walking slowly away from him, tearing a long spray of ivy fromthe trees as she passed them. She seemed so definitely opposed to thevision he held in his mind that he returned to it with a gesture ofimpatience."Katharine, Katharine," he repeated, and seemed to himself to be withher. He lost his sense of all that surrounded him; all substantialthings--the hour of the day, what we have done and are about to do,the presence of other people and the support we derive from seeingtheir belief in a common reality--all this slipped from him. So hemight have felt if the earth had dropped from his feet, and the emptyblue had hung all round him, and the air had been steeped in thepresence of one woman. The chirp of a robin on the bough above hishead awakened him, and his awakenment was accompanied by a sigh. Herewas the world in which he had lived; here the plowed field, the highroad yonder, and Mary, stripping ivy from the trees. When he came upwith her he linked his arm through hers and said:"Now, Mary, what's all this about America?"There was a brotherly kindness in his voice which seemed to hermagnanimous, when she reflected that she had cut short hisexplanations and shown little interest in his change of plan. She gavehim her reasons for thinking that she might profit by such a journey,omitting the one reason which had set all the rest in motion. Helistened attentively, and made no attempt to dissuade her. In truth,he found himself curiously eager to make certain of her good sense,and accepted each fresh proof of it with satisfaction, as though ithelped him to make up his mind about something. She forgot the pain hehad caused her, and in place of it she became conscious of a steadytide of well-being which harmonized very aptly with the tramp of theirfeet upon the dry road and the support of his arm. The comfort was themore glowing in that it seemed to be the reward of her determinationto behave to him simply and without attempting to be other than shewas. Instead of making out an interest in the poets, she avoided theminstinctively, and dwelt rather insistently upon the practical natureof her gifts.In a practical way she asked for particulars of his cottage, whichhardly existed in his mind, and corrected his vagueness."You must see that there's water," she insisted, with an exaggerationof interest. She avoided asking him what he meant to do in thiscottage, and, at last, when all the practical details had beenthrashed out as much as possible, he rewarded her by a more intimatestatement."One of the rooms," he said, "must be my study, for, you see, Mary,I'm going to write a book." Here he withdrew his arm from hers, lithis pipe, and they tramped on in a sagacious kind of comradeship, themost complete they had attained in all their friendship."And what's your book to be about?" she said, as boldly as if she hadnever come to grief with Ralph in talking about books. He told herunhesitatingly that he meant to write the history of the Englishvillage from Saxon days to the present time. Some such plan had lainas a seed in his mind for many years; and now that he had decided, ina flash, to give up his profession, the seed grew in the space oftwenty minutes both tall and lusty. He was surprised himself at thepositive way in which he spoke. It was the same with the question ofhis cottage. That had come into existence, too, in an unromantic shape--a square white house standing just off the high road, no doubt, witha neighbor who kept a pig and a dozen squalling children; for theseplans were shorn of all romance in his mind, and the pleasure hederived from thinking of them was checked directly it passed a verysober limit. So a sensible man who has lost his chance of somebeautiful inheritance might tread out the narrow bounds of his actualdwelling-place, and assure himself that life is supportable within itsdemesne, only one must grow turnips and cabbages, not melons andpomegranates. Certainly Ralph took some pride in the resources of hismind, and was insensibly helped to right himself by Mary's trust inhim. She wound her ivy spray round her ash-plant, and for the firsttime for many days, when alone with Ralph, set no spies upon hermotives, sayings, and feelings, but surrendered herself to completehappiness.Thus talking, with easy silences and some pauses to look at the viewover the hedge and to decide upon the species of a little gray-brownbird slipping among the twigs, they walked into Lincoln, and afterstrolling up and down the main street, decided upon an inn where therounded window suggested substantial fare, nor were they mistaken. Forover a hundred and fifty years hot joints, potatoes, greens, and applepuddings had been served to generations of country gentlemen, and now,sitting at a table in the hollow of the bow window, Ralph and Marytook their share of this perennial feast. Looking across the joint,half-way through the meal, Mary wondered whether Ralph would ever cometo look quite like the other people in the room. Would he be absorbedamong the round pink faces, pricked with little white bristles, thecalves fitted in shiny brown leather, the black-and-white check suits,which were sprinkled about in the same room with them? She half hopedso; she thought that it was only in his mind that he was different.She did not wish him to be too different from other people. The walkhad given him a ruddy color, too, and his eyes were lit up by asteady, honest light, which could not make the simplest farmer feelill at ease, or suggest to the most devout of clergymen a dispositionto sneer at his faith. She loved the steep cliff of his forehead, andcompared it to the brow of a young Greek horseman, who reins his horseback so sharply that it half falls on its haunches. He always seemedto her like a rider on a spirited horse. And there was an exaltationto her in being with him, because there was a risk that he would notbe able to keep to the right pace among other people. Sitting oppositehim at the little table in the window, she came back to that state ofcareless exaltation which had overcome her when they halted by thegate, but now it was accompanied by a sense of sanity and security,for she felt that they had a feeling in common which scarcely neededembodiment in words. How silent he was! leaning his forehead on hishand, now and then, and again looking steadily and gravely at thebacks of the two men at the next table, with so little self-consciousness that she could almost watch his mind placing one thoughtsolidly upon the top of another; she thought that she could feel himthinking, through the shade of her fingers, and she could anticipatethe exact moment when he would put an end to his thought and turn alittle in his chair and say:"Well, Mary--?" inviting her to take up the thread of thought where hehad dropped it.And at that very moment he turned just so, and said:"Well, Mary?" with the curious touch of diffidence which she loved inhim.She laughed, and she explained her laugh on the spur of the moment bythe look of the people in the street below. There was a motor-car withan old lady swathed in blue veils, and a lady's maid on the seatopposite, holding a King Charles's spaniel; there was a country-womanwheeling a perambulator full of sticks down the middle of the road;there was a bailiff in gaiters discussing the state of the cattlemarket with a dissenting minister--so she defined them.She ran over this list without any fear that her companion would thinkher trivial. Indeed, whether it was due to the warmth of the room orto the good roast beef, or whether Ralph had achieved the processwhich is called making up one's mind, certainly he had given uptesting the good sense, the independent character, the intelligenceshown in her remarks. He had been building one of those piles ofthought, as ramshackle and fantastic as a Chinese pagoda, half fromwords let fall by gentlemen in gaiters, half from the litter in hisown mind, about duck shooting and legal history, about the Romanoccupation of Lincoln and the relations of country gentlemen withtheir wives, when, from all this disconnected rambling, there suddenlyformed itself in his mind the idea that he would ask Mary to marryhim. The idea was so spontaneous that it seemed to shape itself of itsown accord before his eyes. It was then that he turned round and madeuse of his old, instinctive phrase:"Well, Mary--?"As it presented itself to him at first, the idea was so new andinteresting that he was half inclined to address it, without more ado,to Mary herself. His natural instinct to divide his thoughts carefullyinto two different classes before he expressed them to her prevailed.But as he watched her looking out of the window and describing the oldlady, the woman with the perambulator, the bailiff and the dissentingminister, his eyes filled involuntarily with tears. He would haveliked to lay his head on her shoulder and sob, while she parted hishair with her fingers and soothed him and said:"There, there. Don't cry! Tell me why you're crying--"; and they wouldclasp each other tight, and her arms would hold him like his mother's.He felt that he was very lonely, and that he was afraid of the otherpeople in the room."How damnable this all is!" he exclaimed abruptly."What are you talking about?" she replied, rather vaguely, stilllooking out of the window.He resented this divided attention more than, perhaps, he knew, and hethought how Mary would soon be on her way to America."Mary," he said, "I want to talk to you. Haven't we nearly done? Whydon't they take away these plates?"Mary felt his agitation without looking at him; she felt convincedthat she knew what it was that he wished to say to her."They'll come all in good time," she said; and felt it necessary todisplay her extreme calmness by lifting a salt-cellar and sweeping upa little heap of bread-crumbs."I want to apologize," Ralph continued, not quite knowing what he wasabout to say, but feeling some curious instinct which urged him tocommit himself irrevocably, and to prevent the moment of intimacy frompassing."I think I've treated you very badly. That is, I've told you lies. Didyou guess that I was lying to you? Once in Lincoln's Inn Fields andagain to-day on our walk. I am a liar, Mary. Did you know that? Do youthink you do know me?""I think I do," she said.At this point the waiter changed their plates."It's true I don't want you to go to America," he said, lookingfixedly at the table-cloth. "In fact, my feelings towards you seem tobe utterly and damnably bad," he said energetically, although forcedto keep his voice low."If I weren't a selfish beast I should tell you to have nothing moreto do with me. And yet, Mary, in spite of the fact that I believe whatI'm saying, I also believe that it's good we should know each other--the world being what it is, you see--" and by a nod of his head heindicated the other occupants of the room, "for, of course, in anideal state of things, in a decent community even, there's no doubtyou shouldn't have anything to do with me--seriously, that is.""You forget that I'm not an ideal character, either," said Mary, inthe same low and very earnest tones, which, in spite of being almostinaudible, surrounded their table with an atmosphere of concentrationwhich was quite perceptible to the other diners, who glanced at themnow and then with a queer mixture of kindness, amusement, andcuriosity."I'm much more selfish than I let on, and I'm worldly a little--morethan you think, anyhow. I like bossing things--perhaps that's mygreatest fault. I've none of your passion for--" here she hesitated,and glanced at him, as if to ascertain what his passion was for--"forthe truth," she added, as if she had found what she soughtindisputably."I've told you I'm a liar," Ralph repeated obstinately."Oh, in little things, I dare say," she said impatiently. "But not inreal ones, and that's what matters. I dare say I'm more truthful thanyou are in small ways. But I could never care"--she was surprised tofind herself speaking the word, and had to force herself to speak itout--"for any one who was a liar in that way. I love the truth acertain amount--a considerable amount--but not in the way you loveit." Her voice sank, became inaudible, and wavered as if she couldscarcely keep herself from tears."Good heavens!" Ralph exclaimed to himself. "She loves me! Why did Inever see it before? She's going to cry; no, but she can't speak."The certainty overwhelmed him so that he scarcely knew what he wasdoing; the blood rushed to his cheeks, and although he had quite madeup his mind to ask her to marry him, the certainty that she loved himseemed to change the situation so completely that he could not do it.He did not dare to look at her. If she cried, he did not know what heshould do. It seemed to him that something of a terrible anddevastating nature had happened. The waiter changed their plates oncemore.In his agitation Ralph rose, turned his back upon Mary, and looked outof the window. The people in the street seemed to him only adissolving and combining pattern of black particles; which, for themoment, represented very well the involuntary procession of feelingsand thoughts which formed and dissolved in rapid succession in his ownmind. At one moment he exulted in the thought that Mary loved him; atthe next, it seemed that he was without feeling for her; her love wasrepulsive to him. Now he felt urged to marry her at once; now todisappear and never see her again. In order to control this disorderlyrace of thought he forced himself to read the name on the chemist'sshop directly opposite him; then to examine the objects in the shopwindows, and then to focus his eyes exactly upon a little group ofwomen looking in at the great windows of a large draper's shop. Thisdiscipline having given him at least a superficial control of himself,he was about to turn and ask the waiter to bring the bill, when hiseye was caught by a tall figure walking quickly along the oppositepavement--a tall figure, upright, dark, and commanding, much detachedfrom her surroundings. She held her gloves in her left hand, and theleft hand was bare. All this Ralph noticed and enumerated andrecognized before he put a name to the whole--Katharine Hilbery. Sheseemed to be looking for somebody. Her eyes, in fact, scanned bothsides of the street, and for one second were raised directly to thebow window in which Ralph stood; but she looked away again instantlywithout giving any sign that she had seen him. This sudden apparitionhad an extraordinary effect upon him. It was as if he had thought ofher so intensely that his mind had formed the shape of her, ratherthan that he had seen her in the flesh outside in the street. And yethe had not been thinking of her at all. The impression was so intensethat he could not dismiss it, nor even think whether he had seen heror merely imagined her. He sat down at once, and said, briefly andstrangely, rather to himself than to Mary:"That was Katharine Hilbery.""Katharine Hilbery? What do you mean?" she asked, hardly understandingfrom his manner whether he had seen her or not."Katharine Hilbery," he repeated. "But she's gone now.""Katharine Hilbery!" Mary thought, in an instant of blindingrevelation; "I've always known it was Katharine Hilbery!" She knew itall now.After a moment of downcast stupor, she raised her eyes, lookedsteadily at Ralph, and caught his fixed and dreamy gaze leveled at apoint far beyond their surroundings, a point that she had neverreached in all the time that she had known him. She noticed the lipsjust parted, the fingers loosely clenched, the whole attitude of raptcontemplation, which fell like a veil between them. She noticedeverything about him; if there had been other signs of his utteralienation she would have sought them out, too, for she felt that itwas only by heaping one truth upon another that she could keep herselfsitting there, upright. The truth seemed to support her; it struckher, even as she looked at his face, that the light of truth wasshining far away beyond him; the light of truth, she seemed to framethe words as she rose to go, shines on a world not to be shaken by ourpersonal calamities.Ralph handed her her coat and her stick. She took them, fastened thecoat securely, grasped the stick firmly. The ivy spray was stilltwisted about the handle; this one sacrifice, she thought, she mightmake to sentimentality and personality, and she picked two leaves fromthe ivy and put them in her pocket before she disencumbered her stickof the rest of it. She grasped the stick in the middle, and settledher fur cap closely upon her head, as if she must be in trim for along and stormy walk. Next, standing in the middle of the road, shetook a slip of paper from her purse, and read out loud a list ofcommissions entrusted to her--fruit, butter, string, and so on; andall the time she never spoke directly to Ralph or looked at him.Ralph heard her giving orders to attentive, rosy-checked men in whiteaprons, and in spite of his own preoccupation, he commented upon thedetermination with which she made her wishes known. Once more hebegan, automatically, to take stock of her characteristics. Standingthus, superficially observant and stirring the sawdust on the floormeditatively with the toe of his boot, he was roused by a musical andfamiliar voice behind him, accompanied by a light touch upon hisshoulder."I'm not mistaken? Surely Mr. Denham? I caught a glimpse of your coatthrough the window, and I felt sure that I knew your coat. Have youseen Katharine or William? I'm wandering about Lincoln looking for theruins."It was Mrs. Hilbery; her entrance created some stir in the shop; manypeople looked at her."First of all, tell me where I am," she demanded, but, catching sightof the attentive shopman, she appealed to him. "The ruins--my party iswaiting for me at the ruins. The Roman ruins--or Greek, Mr. Denham?Your town has a great many beautiful things in it, but I wish ithadn't so many ruins. I never saw such delightful little pots of honeyin my life--are they made by your own bees? Please give me one ofthose little pots, and tell me how I shall find my way to the ruins.""And now," she continued, having received the information and the potof honey, having been introduced to Mary, and having insisted thatthey should accompany her back to the ruins, since in a town with somany turnings, such prospects, such delightful little half-naked boysdabbling in pools, such Venetian canals, such old blue china in thecuriosity shops, it was impossible for one person all alone to findher way to the ruins. "Now," she exclaimed, "please tell me whatyou're doing here, Mr. Denham--for you are Mr. Denham, aren't you?"she inquired, gazing at him with a sudden suspicion of her ownaccuracy. "The brilliant young man who writes for the Review, I mean?Only yesterday my husband was telling me he thought you one of thecleverest young men he knew. Certainly, you've been the messenger ofProvidence to me, for unless I'd seen you I'm sure I should never havefound the ruins at all."They had reached the Roman arch when Mrs. Hilbery caught sight of herown party, standing like sentinels facing up and down the road so asto intercept her if, as they expected, she had got lodged in someshop."I've found something much better than ruins!" she exclaimed. "I'vefound two friends who told me how to find you, which I could neverhave done without them. They must come and have tea with us. What apity that we've just had luncheon." Could they not somehow revoke thatmeal?Katharine, who had gone a few steps by herself down the road, and wasinvestigating the window of an ironmonger, as if her mother might havegot herself concealed among mowing-machines and garden-shears, turnedsharply on hearing her voice, and came towards them. She was a greatdeal surprised to see Denham and Mary Datchet. Whether the cordialitywith which she greeted them was merely that which is natural to asurprise meeting in the country, or whether she was really glad to seethem both, at any rate she exclaimed with unusual pleasure as sheshook hands:"I never knew you lived here. Why didn't you say so, and we could havemet? And are you staying with Mary?" she continued, turning to Ralph."What a pity we didn't meet before."Thus confronted at a distance of only a few feet by the real body ofthe woman about whom he had dreamt so many million dreams, Ralphstammered; he made a clutch at his self-control; the color either cameto his cheeks or left them, he knew not which; but he was determinedto face her and track down in the cold light of day whatever vestigeof truth there might be in his persistent imaginations. He did notsucceed in saying anything. It was Mary who spoke for both of them. Hewas struck dumb by finding that Katharine was quite different, in somestrange way, from his memory, so that he had to dismiss his old viewin order to accept the new one. The wind was blowing her crimson scarfacross her face; the wind had already loosened her hair, which loopedacross the corner of one of the large, dark eyes which, so he used tothink, looked sad; now they looked bright with the brightness of thesea struck by an unclouded ray; everything about her seemed rapid,fragmentary, and full of a kind of racing speed. He realized suddenlythat he had never seen her in the daylight before.Meanwhile, it was decided that it was too late to go in search ofruins as they had intended; and the whole party began to walk towardsthe stables where the carriage had been put up."Do you know," said Katharine, keeping slightly in advance of the restwith Ralph, "I thought I saw you this morning, standing at a window.But I decided that it couldn't be you. And it must have been you allthe same.""Yes, I thought I saw you--but it wasn't you," he replied.This remark, and the rough strain in his voice, recalled to her memoryso many difficult speeches and abortive meetings that she was jerkeddirectly back to the London drawing-room, the family relics, and thetea-table; and at the same time recalled some half-finished orinterrupted remark which she had wanted to make herself or to hearfrom him--she could not remember what it was."I expect it was me," she said. "I was looking for my mother. Ithappens every time we come to Lincoln. In fact, there never was afamily so unable to take care of itself as ours is. Not that it verymuch matters, because some one always turns up in the nick of time tohelp us out of our scrapes. Once I was left in a field with a bullwhen I was a baby--but where did we leave the carriage? Down thatstreet or the next? The next, I think." She glanced back and saw thatthe others were following obediently, listening to certain memories ofLincoln upon which Mrs. Hilbery had started. "But what are you doinghere?" she asked."I'm buying a cottage. I'm going to live here--as soon as I can find acottage, and Mary tells me there'll be no difficulty about that.""But," she exclaimed, almost standing still in her surprise, "you willgive up the Bar, then?" It flashed across her mind that he mustalready be engaged to Mary."The solicitor's office? Yes. I'm giving that up.""But why?" she asked. She answered herself at once, with a curiouschange from rapid speech to an almost melancholy tone. "I think you'revery wise to give it up. You will be much happier."At this very moment, when her words seemed to be striking a path intothe future for him, they stepped into the yard of an inn, and therebeheld the family coach of the Otways, to which one sleek horse wasalready attached, while the second was being led out of the stabledoor by the hostler."I don't know what one means by happiness," he said briefly, having tostep aside in order to avoid a groom with a bucket. "Why do you thinkI shall be happy? I don't expect to be anything of the kind. I expectto be rather less unhappy. I shall write a book and curse my charwoman--if happiness consists in that. What do you think?"She could not answer because they were immediately surrounded by othermembers of the party--by Mrs. Hilbery, and Mary, Henry Otway, andWilliam.Rodney went up to Katharine immediately and said to her:"Henry is going to drive home with your mother, and I suggest thatthey should put us down half-way and let us walk back."Katharine nodded her head. She glanced at him with an oddly furtiveexpression."Unfortunately we go in opposite directions, or we might have givenyou a lift," he continued to Denham. His manner was unusuallyperemptory; he seemed anxious to hasten the departure, and Katharinelooked at him from time to time, as Denham noticed, with an expressionhalf of inquiry, half of annoyance. She at once helped her mother intoher cloak, and said to Mary:"I want to see you. Are you going back to London at once? I willwrite." She half smiled at Ralph, but her look was a little overcastby something she was thinking, and in a very few minutes the Otwaycarriage rolled out of the stable yard and turned down the high roadleading to the village of Lampsher.The return drive was almost as silent as the drive from home had beenin the morning; indeed, Mrs. Hilbery leant back with closed eyes inher corner, and either slept or feigned sleep, as her habit was in theintervals between the seasons of active exertion, or continued thestory which she had begun to tell herself that morning.About two miles from Lampsher the road ran over the rounded summit ofthe heath, a lonely spot marked by an obelisk of granite, settingforth the gratitude of some great lady of the eighteenth century whohad been set upon by highwaymen at this spot and delivered from deathjust as hope seemed lost. In summer it was a pleasant place, for thedeep woods on either side murmured, and the heather, which grew thickround the granite pedestal, made the light breeze taste sweetly; inwinter the sighing of the trees was deepened to a hollow sound, andthe heath was as gray and almost as solitary as the empty sweep of theclouds above it.Here Rodney stopped the carriage and helped Katharine to alight.Henry, too, gave her his hand, and fancied that she pressed it veryslightly in parting as if she sent him a message. But the carriagerolled on immediately, without wakening Mrs. Hilbery, and left thecouple standing by the obelisk. That Rodney was angry with her and hadmade this opportunity for speaking to her, Katharine knew very well;she was neither glad nor sorry that the time had come, nor, indeed,knew what to expect, and thus remained silent. The carriage grewsmaller and smaller upon the dusky road, and still Rodney did notspeak. Perhaps, she thought, he waited until the last sign of thecarriage had disappeared beneath the curve of the road and they wereleft entirely alone. To cloak their silence she read the writing onthe obelisk, to do which she had to walk completely round it. She wasmurmuring a word to two of the pious lady's thanks above her breathwhen Rodney joined her. In silence they set out along the cart-trackwhich skirted the verge of the trees.To break the silence was exactly what Rodney wished to do, and yetcould not do to his own satisfaction. In company it was far easier toapproach Katharine; alone with her, the aloofness and force of hercharacter checked all his natural methods of attack. He believed thatshe had behaved very badly to him, but each separate instance ofunkindness seemed too petty to be advanced when they were alonetogether."There's no need for us to race," he complained at last; upon whichshe immediately slackened her pace, and walked too slowly to suit him.In desperation he said the first thing he thought of, very peevishlyand without the dignified prelude which he had intended."I've not enjoyed my holiday.""No?""No. I shall be glad to get back to work again.""Saturday, Sunday, Monday--there are only three days more," shecounted."No one enjoys being made a fool of before other people," he blurtedout, for his irritation rose as she spoke, and got the better of hisawe of her, and was inflamed by that awe."That refers to me, I suppose," she said calmly."Every day since we've been here you've done something to make meappear ridiculous," he went on. "Of course, so long as it amuses you,you're welcome; but we have to remember that we are going to spend ourlives together. I asked you, only this morning, for example, to comeout and take a turn with me in the garden. I was waiting for you tenminutes, and you never came. Every one saw me waiting. The stable-boyssaw me. I was so ashamed that I went in. Then, on the drive you hardlyspoke to me. Henry noticed it. Every one notices it. . . . You find nodifficulty in talking to Henry, though."She noted these various complaints and determined philosophically toanswer none of them, although the last stung her to considerableirritation. She wished to find out how deep his grievance lay."None of these things seem to me to matter," she said."Very well, then. I may as well hold my tongue," he replied."In themselves they don't seem to me to matter; if they hurt you, ofcourse they matter," she corrected herself scrupulously. Her tone ofconsideration touched him, and he walked on in silence for a space."And we might be so happy, Katharine!" he exclaimed impulsively, anddrew her arm through his. She withdrew it directly."As long as you let yourself feel like this we shall never be happy,"she said.The harshness, which Henry had noticed, was again unmistakable in hermanner. William flinched and was silent. Such severity, accompanied bysomething indescribably cold and impersonal in her manner, hadconstantly been meted out to him during the last few days, always inthe company of others. He had recouped himself by some ridiculousdisplay of vanity which, as he knew, put him still more at her mercy.Now that he was alone with her there was no stimulus from outside todraw his attention from his injury. By a considerable effort ofself-control he forced himself to remain silent, and to make himselfdistinguish what part of his pain was due to vanity, what part to thecertainty that no woman really loving him could speak thus."What do I feel about Katharine?" he thought to himself. It was clearthat she had been a very desirable and distinguished figure, themistress of her little section of the world; but more than that, shewas the person of all others who seemed to him the arbitress of life,the woman whose judgment was naturally right and steady, as his hadnever been in spite of all his culture. And then he could not see hercome into a room without a sense of the flowing of robes, of theflowering of blossoms, of the purple waves of the sea, of all thingsthat are lovely and mutable on the surface but still and passionate intheir heart."If she were callous all the time and had only led me on to laugh atme I couldn't have felt that about her," he thought. "I'm not a fool,after all. I can't have been utterly mistaken all these years. Andyet, when she speaks to me like that! The truth of it is," he thought,"that I've got such despicable faults that no one could help speakingto me like that. Katharine is quite right. And yet those are not myserious feelings, as she knows quite well. How can I change myself?What would make her care for me?" He was terribly tempted here tobreak the silence by asking Katharine in what respects he could changehimself to suit her; but he sought consolation instead by running overthe list of his gifts and acquirements, his knowledge of Greek andLatin, his knowledge of art and literature, his skill in themanagement of meters, and his ancient west-country blood. But thefeeling that underlay all these feelings and puzzled him profoundlyand kept him silent was the certainty that he loved Katharine assincerely as he had it in him to love any one. And yet she could speakto him like that! In a sort of bewilderment he lost all desire tospeak, and would quite readily have taken up some different topic ofconversation if Katharine had started one. This, however, she did notdo.He glanced at her, in case her expression might help him to understandher behavior. As usual, she had quickened her pace unconsciously, andwas now walking a little in front of him; but he could gain littleinformation from her eyes, which looked steadily at the brown heather,or from the lines drawn seriously upon her forehead. Thus to losetouch with her, for he had no idea what she was thinking, was sounpleasant to him that he began to talk about his grievances again,without, however, much conviction in his voice."If you have no feeling for me, wouldn't it be kinder to say so to mein private?""Oh, William," she burst out, as if he had interrupted some absorbingtrain of thought, "how you go on about feelings! Isn't it better notto talk so much, not to be worrying always about small things thatdon't really matter?""That's the question precisely," he exclaimed. "I only want you totell me that they don't matter. There are times when you seemindifferent to everything. I'm vain, I've a thousand faults; but youknow they're not everything; you know I care for you.""And if I say that I care for you, don't you believe me?""Say it, Katharine! Say it as if you meant it! Make me feel that youcare for me!"She could not force herself to speak a word. The heather was growingdim around them, and the horizon was blotted out by white mist. To askher for passion or for certainty seemed like asking that damp prospectfor fierce blades of fire, or the faded sky for the intense blue vaultof June.He went on now to tell her of his love for her, in words which bore,even to her critical senses, the stamp of truth; but none of thistouched her, until, coming to a gate whose hinge was rusty, he heavedit open with his shoulder, still talking and taking no account of hiseffort. The virility of this deed impressed her; and yet, normally,she attached no value to the power of opening gates. The strength ofmuscles has nothing to do on the face of it with the strength ofaffections; nevertheless, she felt a sudden concern for this powerrunning to waste on her account, which, combined with a desire to keeppossession of that strangely attractive masculine power, made herrouse herself from her torpor.Why should she not simply tell him the truth--which was that she hadaccepted him in a misty state of mind when nothing had its right shapeor size? that it was deplorable, but that with clearer eyesightmarriage was out of the question? She did not want to marry any one.She wanted to go away by herself, preferably to some bleak northernmoor, and there study mathematics and the science of astronomy. Twentywords would explain the whole situation to him. He had ceased tospeak; he had told her once more how he loved her and why. Shesummoned her courage, fixed her eyes upon a lightning-splinteredash-tree, and, almost as if she were reading a writing fixed to thetrunk, began:"I was wrong to get engaged to you. I shall never make you happy. Ihave never loved you.""Katharine!" he protested."No, never," she repeated obstinately. "Not rightly. Don't you see, Ididn't know what I was doing?""You love some one else?" he cut her short."Absolutely no one.""Henry?" he demanded."Henry? I should have thought, William, even you--""There is some one," he persisted. "There has been a change in thelast few weeks. You owe it to me to be honest, Katharine.""If I could, I would," she replied."Why did you tell me you would marry me, then?" he demanded.Why, indeed? A moment of pessimism, a sudden conviction of theundeniable prose of life, a lapse of the illusion which sustains youthmidway between heaven and earth, a desperate attempt to reconcileherself with facts--she could only recall a moment, as of waking froma dream, which now seemed to her a moment of surrender. But who couldgive reasons such as these for doing what she had done? She shook herhead very sadly."But you're not a child--you're not a woman of moods," Rodneypersisted. "You couldn't have accepted me if you hadn't loved me!" hecried.A sense of her own misbehavior, which she had succeeded in keepingfrom her by sharpening her consciousness of Rodney's faults, now sweptover her and almost overwhelmed her. What were his faults incomparison with the fact that he cared for her? What were her virtuesin comparison with the fact that she did not care for him? In a flashthe conviction that not to care is the uttermost sin of all stampeditself upon her inmost thought; and she felt herself branded for ever.He had taken her arm, and held her hand firmly in his, nor had she theforce to resist what now seemed to her his enormously superiorstrength. Very well; she would submit, as her mother and her aunt andmost women, perhaps, had submitted; and yet she knew that every secondof such submission to his strength was a second of treachery to him."I did say I would marry you, but it was wrong," she forced herself tosay, and she stiffened her arm as if to annul even the seemingsubmission of that separate part of her; "for I don't love you,William; you've noticed it, every one's noticed it; why should we goon pretending? When I told you I loved you, I was wrong. I said what Iknew to be untrue."As none of her words seemed to her at all adequate to represent whatshe felt, she repeated them, and emphasized them without realizing theeffect that they might have upon a man who cared for her. She wascompletely taken aback by finding her arm suddenly dropped; then shesaw his face most strangely contorted; was he laughing, it flashedacross her? In another moment she saw that he was in tears. In herbewilderment at this apparition she stood aghast for a second. With adesperate sense that this horror must, at all costs, be stopped, shethen put her arms about him, drew his head for a moment upon hershoulder, and led him on, murmuring words of consolation, until heheaved a great sigh. They held fast to each other; her tears, too, randown her cheeks; and were both quite silent. Noticing the difficultywith which he walked, and feeling the same extreme lassitude in herown limbs, she proposed that they should rest for a moment where thebracken was brown and shriveled beneath an oak-tree. He assented. Oncemore he gave a great sigh, and wiped his eyes with a childlikeunconsciousness, and began to speak without a trace of his previousanger. The idea came to her that they were like the children in thefairy tale who were lost in a wood, and with this in her mind shenoticed the scattering of dead leaves all round them which had beenblown by the wind into heaps, a foot or two deep, here and there."When did you begin to feel this, Katharine?" he said; "for it isn'ttrue to say that you've always felt it. I admit I was unreasonable thefirst night when you found that your clothes had been left behind.Still, where's the fault in that? I could promise you never tointerfere with your clothes again. I admit I was cross when I foundyou upstairs with Henry. Perhaps I showed it too openly. But that'snot unreasonable either when one's engaged. Ask your mother. And nowthis terrible thing--" He broke off, unable for the moment to proceedany further. "This decision you say you've come to--have you discussedit with any one? Your mother, for example, or Henry?""No, no, of course not," she said, stirring the leaves with her hand."But you don't understand me, William--""Help me to understand you--""You don't understand, I mean, my real feelings; how could you? I'veonly now faced them myself. But I haven't got the sort offeeling--love, I mean--I don't know what to call it"--she lookedvaguely towards the horizon sunk under mist--"but, anyhow, without itour marriage would be a farce--""How a farce?" he asked. "But this kind of analysis is disastrous!" heexclaimed."I should have done it before," she said gloomily."You make yourself think things you don't think," he continued,becoming demonstrative with his hands, as his manner was. "Believe me,Katharine, before we came here we were perfectly happy. You were fullof plans for our house--the chair-covers, don't you remember?--likeany other woman who is about to be married. Now, for no reasonwhatever, you begin to fret about your feeling and about my feeling,with the usual result. I assure you, Katharine, I've been through itall myself. At one time I was always asking myself absurd questionswhich came to nothing either. What you want, if I may say so, is someoccupation to take you out of yourself when this morbid mood comes on.If it hadn't been for my poetry, I assure you, I should often havebeen very much in the same state myself. To let you into a secret," hecontinued, with his little chuckle, which now sounded almost assured,"I've often gone home from seeing you in such a state of nerves that Ihad to force myself to write a page or two before I could get you outof my head. Ask Denham; he'll tell you how he met me one night; he'lltell you what a state he found me in."Katharine started with displeasure at the mention of Ralph's name. Thethought of the conversation in which her conduct had been made asubject for discussion with Denham roused her anger; but, as sheinstantly felt, she had scarcely the right to grudge William any useof her name, seeing what her fault against him had been from first tolast. And yet Denham! She had a view of him as a judge. She figuredhim sternly weighing instances of her levity in this masculine courtof inquiry into feminine morality and gruffly dismissing both her andher family with some half-sarcastic, half-tolerant phrase which sealedher doom, as far as he was concerned, for ever. Having met him solately, the sense of his character was strong in her. The thought wasnot a pleasant one for a proud woman, but she had yet to learn the artof subduing her expression. Her eyes fixed upon the ground, her browsdrawn together, gave William a very fair picture of the resentmentthat she was forcing herself to control. A certain degree ofapprehension, occasionally culminating in a kind of fear, had alwaysentered into his love for her, and had increased, rather to hissurprise, in the greater intimacy of their engagement. Beneath hersteady, exemplary surface ran a vein of passion which seemed to himnow perverse, now completely irrational, for it never took the normalchannel of glorification of him and his doings; and, indeed, he almostpreferred the steady good sense, which had always marked theirrelationship, to a more romantic bond. But passion she had, he couldnot deny it, and hitherto he had tried to see it employed in histhoughts upon the lives of the children who were to be born to them."She will make a perfect mother--a mother of sons," he thought; butseeing her sitting there, gloomy and silent, he began to have hisdoubts on this point. "A farce, a farce," he thought to himself. "Shesaid that our marriage would be a farce," and he became suddenly awareof their situation, sitting upon the ground, among the dead leaves,not fifty yards from the main road, so that it was quite possible forsome one passing to see and recognize them. He brushed off his faceany trace that might remain of that unseemly exhibition of emotion.But he was more troubled by Katharine's appearance, as she sat rapt inthought upon the ground, than by his own; there was something improperto him in her self-forgetfulness. A man naturally alive to theconventions of society, he was strictly conventional where women wereconcerned, and especially if the women happened to be in any wayconnected with him. He noticed with distress the long strand of darkhair touching her shoulder and two or three dead beech-leaves attachedto her dress; but to recall her mind in their present circumstances toa sense of these details was impossible. She sat there, seemingunconscious of everything. He suspected that in her silence she wasreproaching herself; but he wished that she would think of her hairand of the dead beech-leaves, which were of more immediate importanceto him than anything else. Indeed, these trifles drew his attentionstrangely from his own doubtful and uneasy state of mind; for relief,mixing itself with pain, stirred up a most curious hurry and tumult inhis breast, almost concealing his first sharp sense of bleak andoverwhelming disappointment. In order to relieve this restlessness andclose a distressingly ill-ordered scene, he rose abruptly and helpedKatharine to her feet. She smiled a little at the minute care withwhich he tidied her and yet, when he brushed the dead leaves from hisown coat, she flinched, seeing in that action the gesture of a lonelyman."William," she said, "I will marry you. I will try to make you happy."