At Mrs. Cosgrove’s, this Sunday afternoon, Monica had eyes and thoughts for one person only. Her coming at all was practically an appointment to meet Bevis, whom she had seen twice since her visit to the flat. A day or two after that occasion, she received a call from the Bevis girls, who told her of their brother’s approaching departure for Bordeaux, and thereupon she invited the trio to dine with her. A fortnight subsequently to the dinner she had a chance encounter with Bevis in Oxford Street; constraint of business did not allow him to walk beside her for more than a minute or two, but they spoke of Mrs. Cosgrove’s on the following Sunday, and there, accordingly, found each other.

Tremor of self-consciousness kept Monica in dread of being watched and suspected. Few people were present today, and after exchanging formal words with Bevis, she moved away to talk with the hostess. Not till half an hour had passed did she venture to obey the glances which her all but avowed lover cast towards her in conversation. He was so much at ease, so like what she had always known him, that Monica asked herself whether she had not mistaken the meaning of his homage. One moment she hoped it might be so; the next, she longed for some sign of passionate devotion, and thought with anguish of the day, now so near, when he would be gone for ever. This, she ardently believed, was the man who should have been her husband. Him she could love with heart and soul, could make his will her absolute law, could live on his smiles, could devote herself to his interests. The independence she had been struggling to assert ever since her marriage meant only freedom to love. If she had understood herself as she now did, her life would never have been thus cast into bondage.

‘The girls,’ Bevis was saying, ‘leave on Thursday. The rest of the week I shall be alone. On Monday the furniture will be stowed away at the Pantechnicon, and on Tuesday — off I go.’

A casual listener could have supposed that the prospect pleased him. Monica, with a fixed smile, looked at the other groups conversing in the room; no one was paying any attention to her. In the same moment she heard a murmur from her companion’s lips; he was speaking still, but in a voice only just audible.

‘Come on Friday afternoon about four o’clock.’

Her heart began to throb painfully, and she knew that a treacherous colour had risen to her checks.

‘Do come — once more — for the last time. It shall be just as before — just as before. An hour’s talk, and we will say good-bye to each other.’

She was powerless to breathe a word. Bevis, noticing that Mrs. Cosgrove had thrown a look in their direction, suddenly laughed as if at some jest between them, and resumed his lively strain of talk. Monica also laughed. An interval of make-believe, and again the soft murmur fell upon her ear.

‘I shall expect you. I know you won’t refuse me this one last kindness. Some day,’ his voice was all but extinguished, ‘some day — who knows?’

Dreadful hope struck through her. A stranger’s eyes turned their way, and again she laughed.

‘On Friday, at four. I shall expect you.’

She rose, looked for an instant about the room, then offered him her hand, uttering some commonplace word of leave-taking. Their eyes did not meet. She went up to Mrs. Cosgrove, and as soon as possible left the house.

Widdowson met her as she crossed the threshold of home. His face told her that something extraordinary had happened, and she trembled before him.

‘Back already?’ he exclaimed, with a grim smile. ‘Be quick, and take your things off, and come to the library.’

If he had discovered anything (the lie, for instance, that she told him a month ago, or that more recent falsehood when she pretended, without serious reason, to have been at Miss Barfoot’s lecture), he would not look and speak thus. Hurrying, panting, she made a change of dress, and obeyed his summons.

‘Miss Nunn has been here,’ were his first words.

She turned pale as death. Of course he observed it; she was now preparing for anything.

‘She wanted to see you because she is going away on Monday. What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing. You spoke so strangely —’

‘Did I? And you look very strangely. I don’t understand you. Miss Nunn says that everybody has noticed how ill you seem. It’s time we did something. To-morrow morning we are going down into Somerset, to Clevedon, to find a house.’

‘I thought you had given up that idea.’

‘Whether I had or not doesn’t matter.’

In the determination to appear, and be, energetic, he spoke with a rough obstinacy, a doggedness that now and then became violence. ‘I am decided on it now. There’s a train to Bristol at ten-twenty. You will pack just a few things; we shan’t be away for more than a day or two.’

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday — By Friday they might be back. Till now, in an anguish of uncertainty, Monica had made up her mind. She would keep the appointment on Friday, come of it what might. If she could not be back in time, she would write a letter.

‘Why are you talking in this tone?’ she said coldly.

‘What tone? I am telling you what I have decided to do, that’s all. I shall easily find a house down there, no doubt. Knowing the place, you will be able to suggest the likely localities.’

She sat down, for strength was failing her.

‘It’s quite true,’ Widdowson went on, staring at her with inflamed eyes. ‘You are beginning to look like a ghost. Oh, we’ll have an end of this!’ He cackled in angry laughter. ‘Not a day’s unnecessary delay! Write to both your sisters this evening and tell them. I wish them both to come and live with us.’

‘Very well.’

‘Now, won’t you be glad? Won’t it be better in every way?’

He came so near that she felt his feverish breath.

‘I told you before,’ she answered, ‘to do just as you liked.’

‘And you won’t talk about being kept a prisoner?’

Monica laughed.

‘Oh no, I won’t say anything at all.’

She scarcely knew what words fell from her lips. Let him propose, let him do what he liked; to her it was indifferent. She saw something before her — something she durst not, even an hour ago, have steadily contemplated; it drew her with the force of fate.

‘You know we couldn’t go on living like this — don’t you, Monica?’

‘No, we couldn’t.’

‘You see!’ He almost shouted in triumph, misled by the smile on her face. ‘All that was needed was resolution on my part. I have been absurdly weak, and weakness in the husband means unhappiness in the wife. From today you look to me for guidance. I am no tyrant, but I shall rule you for your own good.’

Still she smiled.

‘So there’s an end of our misery — isn’t it, darling? What misery! Good God, how I have suffered! Haven’t you known it?’

‘I have known it too well.’

‘And now you will make up to me for it, Monica?’

Again prompted by the irresistible force, she answered mechanically  —

‘I will do the best for both.’

He threw himself on the ground beside her and clasped her in his arms.

‘No, that is my own dear wife once more! Your face has altogether changed. See how right it is that a husband should take the law into his own hands! Our second year of marriage shall be very different from the first. And yet we were happy, weren’t we, my beautiful? It’s only this cursed London that has come between us. At Clevedon we shall begin our life over again — like we did at Guernsey. All our trouble, I am convinced, has come of your ill-health. This air has never suited you; you have felt miserable, and couldn’t be at peace in your home. Poor little girl! My poor darling!’

Through the evening he was in a state of transport, due partly to the belief that Monica really welcomed his decision, partly to the sense of having behaved at length like a resolute man. His eyes were severely bloodshot, and before bedtime headache racked him intolerably.

Everything was carried out as he had planned it. They journeyed down into Somerset, put up at a Clevedon hotel, and began house-hunting. On Wednesday the suitable abode was discovered — a house of modest pretensions, but roomy and well situated. It could be made ready for occupation in a fortnight. Bent on continuing his exhibition of vigorous promptitude, Widdowson signed a lease that same evening.

‘To-morrow we will go straight home and make our preparations for removal. When all is ready, you shall come down here and live at the hotel until the house is furnished. Go to your sister Virginia and simply bid her do as you wish. Imitate me!’ He laughed fatuously. ‘Don’t listen to any objection. When you have once got her away she will thank you.’

By Thursday afternoon they were back at Herne Hill. Widdowson still kept up the show of extravagant spirits, but he was worn out. He spoke so hoarsely that one would have thought he had contracted a severe sore throat; it resulted merely from nervous strain. After a pretence of dinner, he seated himself as if to read; glancing at him a few minutes later, Monica found that he was fast asleep.

She could not bear to gaze at him, yet her eyes turned thither again and again. His face was repulsive to her; the deep furrows, the red eyelids, the mottled skin moved her to loathing. And yet she pitied him. His frantic exultation was the cruelest irony. What would he do? What would become of him? She turned away, and presently left the room, for the sound of his uneasy breathing made her suffer too much.

When he woke up, he came in search of her, and laughed over his involuntary nap.

‘Well, now, you will go and see your sister tomorrow morning.’

‘In the afternoon, I think.’

‘Why? Don’t let us have any procrastination. The morning, the morning!’

‘Please do let me have my way in such a trifle as that,’ Monica exclaimed nervously. ‘I have all sorts of things to see to here before I can go out.’

He caressed her.

‘You shan’t say that I am unreasonable. In the afternoon, then. And don’t listen to any objections.’

‘No, no.’

It was Friday. All the morning Widdowson had business with house agents and furniture removers, for he would not let a day go by without some practical step towards release from the life he detested. Monica seemed to be equally active in her own department; she was turning out drawers and wardrobes, and making selection of things — on some principle understood by herself. A flush remained upon her cheeks, in marked contrast to the pallor which for a long time had given her an appearance of wasting away. That and her singularly bright eyes endowed her with beauty suggestive of what she might have gained in happy marriage.

They had luncheon at one o’clock, and at a quarter to two Monica started by train for Clapham Junction. It was her purpose to have a short conversation with Virginia, who knew of the trip to Clevedon, and to speak as though she were quite reconciled to the thought of removal; after that, she would pursue her journey so as to reach Bayswater by four o’clock. But Virginia was not at home. Mrs. Conisbee said she had gone out at eleven in the morning, and with the intention of returning by teatime. After a brief hesitation Monica requested the landlady to deliver a message.

‘Please ask her not to come to Herne Hill until she hears from me, as I am not likely to be at home for a day or two.’

This left more time at her disposal than she knew how to employ. She returned to the railway station, and travelled on to Victoria; there, in the corner of a waiting-room, she sat, feverishly impatient, until her watch told her that she might take the next train westward.

A possible danger was before her — though perhaps she need not trouble herself with the thought of such dangers. What if Mr. Barfoot happened to encounter her as she ascended the stairs? But most likely he had no idea that her female friends, who dwelt on the floor above him, were gone away. Did it matter what he might think? In a day or two  —

She came to the street, approached the block of flats, involuntarily casting anxious glances about her. And when she was within twenty yards of the door, it opened, and forth came Barfoot. Her first sensation was unreasoning terror; her next, thankfulness that she had not been a few minutes sooner, when the very meeting she had feared, within the building itself, would have come to pass. He walked this way; he saw her; and the pleasantest smile of recognition lit up his face.

‘Mrs. Widdowson! Not a minute ago you were in my thoughts. I wished I could see you.’

‘I am going — to make a call in this neighbourhood —’

She could not command herself. The shock had left her trembling, and the necessity of feigning calmness was a new trial of her nerves. Barfoot, she felt certain, was reading her face like a printed page; he saw guilt there; his quickly-averted eyes, his peculiar smile, seemed to express the facile tolerance of a man of the world.

‘Allow me to accompany you to the end of the street.’

His words buzzed in her ears. She walked on without conscious effort, like an automaton obedient to a touch.

‘You know that Miss Nunn has gone down into Cumberland?’ Barfoot was saying, his look bent upon her.

‘Yes. I know.’

She tried to glance at him with a smile.

‘To-morrow,’ he pursued, ‘I am going there myself.’

‘To Cumberland?’

‘I shall see her, I hope. Perhaps she will only be angry with me.’

‘Perhaps. But perhaps not.’

Her confusion would not be overcome. She felt a burning in her ears, on her neck. It was an agony of shame. The words she spoke sounded imbecile mutterings, which must confirm Barfoot in his worst opinion of her.

‘If it is all in vain,’ he continued, ‘then I shall say good-bye, and there’s an end.’

‘I hope not — I should think —’

Useless. She set her lips and became mute. If only he would leave her! And almost immediately he did so, with a few words of kind tone. She felt the pressure of his hand, and saw him walk rapidly away; doubtless he knew this was what she desired.

Until he had passed out of sight, Monica kept the same direction. Then she turned round and hurried back, fearful lest the detention might make her late, and Bevis might lose hope of her coming. There could be no one in the building now whom she need fear to meet. She opened the big entrance door and went up.

Bevis must have been waiting for the sound of her light footstep; his door flew open before she could knock. Without speaking, a silent laugh of joy upon his lips, he drew back to make room for her entrance, and then pressed both her hands.

In the sitting-room were beginnings of disorder. Pictures had been taken down from the walls and light ornaments removed.

‘I shan’t sleep here after to-night,’ Bevis began, his agitation scarcely less obvious than Monica’s. ‘To-morrow I shall be packing what is to go with me. How I hate it all!’

Monica dropped into a chair near the door.

‘Oh, not there!’ he exclaimed. ‘Here, where you sat before. We are going to have tea together again.’

His utterances were forced, and the laugh that came between them betrayed the quivering of his nerves.

‘Tell me what you have been doing. I have thought of you day and night.’

He brought a chair close to her, and when he had seated himself he took one of her hands. Monica, scarcely repressing a sob, the result of reaction from her fears and miseries, drew the hand away. But again he took it.

‘There’s the glove on it,’ he said in a shaking voice. ‘What harm in my holding your glove? Don’t think of it, and talk to me. I love music, but no music is like your voice.’

‘You go on Monday?’

It was her lips spoke the sentence, not she.

‘No, on Tuesday — I think.’

‘My — Mr. Widdowson is going to take me away from London.’

‘Away?’

She told him the circumstances. Bevis kept his eyes upon her face, with a look of rapt adoration which turned at length to pain and woeful perplexity.

‘You have been married a year,’ he murmured. ‘Oh, if I had met you before that! What a cruel fate that we should know each other only when there was no hope!’

The man revealed himself in this dolorous sentimentality. His wonted blitheness and facetiousness, his healthy features, his supple, well-built frame, suggested that when love awoke within him he would express it with virile force. But he trembled and blushed like a young............