I  
She lay still asleep in her bed while Gregory prepared himself for his journey. He trod in stockinged feet upon the boards of the bedroom, throwing articles of clothing into a carpet bag, and stopping to glance at his wife who, with her hair loose on the pillow around her small face, looked like some fragile child, and like a child’s too was the shape of her limbs beneath the thin covering of blanket. She lay sleeping; her lips parted. Gregory had purposely not roused her. It was her undoubted business to go downstairs, light the fire, and get him some breakfast, but he would forego the meal sooner than watch her moving about the house he was that day abandoning. He did not wish to carry away the picture of her at her familiar tasks, in which, he imagined, she would so soon be watched by another. In his fancy he pictured Morgan entering the house as soon as he, Gregory, had safely left it. Would they 235breakfast delightedly together? or would the fear of Silas counsel prudence? Again, as many times before, he was upon the point of renouncing his journey. He looked at Nan with his fists clinched, a storm of hatred and possession tearing him. His placid inward life, running as smoothly as the machines with which it was always occupied, had been disturbed lately, disturbed with a violence he would not have suspected; he was troubled and resentful, directing his resentment particularly against Nan who had brought this disturbance upon him. He glared at her as she lay asleep. He thought angrily that he should be allowed to live as a privileged designer of engines, not drawn into the fury of domestic calamity. His nature, once roused, held elements so harsh and intolerant, he knew, that it fitted him all too well for a part in such a calamity. Had he been aloof, indifferent ... ah! how he coveted that gift of indifference. He had it not; he was too much of a Dene. So he dressed himself, packed his bag, and brooded resentment over Nan. She slept on; breathing softly; unconscious.
He was ready, but for his coat. He stood in his shirt sleeves looking at Nan and wondering whether he should wake her or slip away to the station with 236no farewell. Then he bent down and slid his arm beneath the pillow, lifting her bodily towards him. She woke with a cry, to find Gregory’s face near hers as he knelt on the floor. It was very fortunate that he could not hear the cry, which, at first merely startled, changed to horror as she recognised him. His sardonic smile and her widened eyes were terribly close; their two faces, by reason of their nearness, seemed large to one another. She pushed with both hands against his chest, struggling silently; only half awake, she had not the wisdom not to struggle; now, she knew only his distastefulness. He held her, hardened to a cold fury by her resistance. He could see all her muscles exerted in the effort to get rid of him; even the corners of her mouth were drawn tight, and her eyes were fixed on him in concentration. She could not plead with him, as she could have with another man; their strife must be soundless; she pushed, and twisted herself within his grasp, both quite in vain, then, relaxing, she lay quiet, with his arm still beneath her. She stared up at him. She knew, and was terrified by, the expression in his eyes. He drew his hand from beneath her and sketched a rapid phrase on his fingers, at the same time moving towards her. She 237answered vehemently in the same manner, her arms pitifully slight and delicate as the loose nightgown fell back from them, and the fingers racing in gesticulation. His whole face darkened as he read; she saw that an angry obstinacy was taking possession of him. She tried to escape from the opposite side of her bed, but he seized her again, holding her down, determined, revengeful, and unshaken by pity. She sought wildly in her mind for some means of release, finding none, when she heard Calthorpe’s voice calling for Gregory beneath the window.
II
 
She was saved, he had gone, flinging on his coat and snatching his carpet-bag, but for long she remained trembling and fearing his return. She shuddered at intervals as she remembered their struggle, conducted in that horrible silence; their antagonism had been so condensed; none of it could slip away in words. She could still feel where his fingers had gripped into her flesh. If Calthorpe had not come! Now, now, they were on the road to Spalding; she was alone in the house, she was to breakfast with Silas and Linnet. Her shudders of horror gave 238place to the sweet shivering she knew when she thought of Linnet, an etherealised desire, a trembling of her spirit more than of her body, a going out towards a young and fit companion, who by a refinement of perfection was also a lover. Gradually she ceased to think of Gregory, and lost herself in the other thought, lying propped up on her pillow with an unconscious smile of heavenly happiness in her eyes and upon her lips. She rose presently, and in the same dream started to dress, delighting in the touch of the cold water she splashed over her throat and arms. The puritanical neatness of each garment, and the fibre of her laundered linen, likewise satisfied her as she became clothed. She had noticed how, without any exaggeration of fancy, small physical experiences were intensified of late,—colours were brighter, the song of birds more ringing, her flesh more sensitive to the touch, and in looking at people she had observed how the pores of their skin were distinct, or the firm planting of eyelashes, and sweep of eyebrow,—all these things, that were foolishly unimportant, but that added a vividness to daily life. She was in every detail more keenly alive; her nostrils............