When Joyce was left quite alone, and felt the shelter of the silence and solitude, she dropped again, as she had done in the room downstairs, upon the rug before the fire. Great distress and trouble are chilling things; they make the sick heart creep to the fire—the warmth gives a little forlorn comfort when all is low and ice-bound in the soul. She dropped there like a child—half seated, half on her knees. There was a kind of luxury in the feeling that no one could see or interrupt or sympathise with her—that she was safe for the long hours of the winter night, safe and alone.
What had she done? She had listened when she could not silence him. She had lost herself in listening, feeling his heart beat against her and his voice in her ears. She seemed to hear them now as soon as other people had left her—as soon as she was free from interrupting, unintelligible voices of others. He had told her, over and over again, what she knew—nothing but what she knew; and he must have felt her heart beating too, though not like his—beating heavily, loudly,—beating like a thing half stifled in bonds and ligatures—for he had not waited for any answer. He had taken her to himself when the climax came, and between them there could be no more said. Joyce recognised that there could have been no more said. She remembered that she was sobbing, unable to draw her breath, and that his breath too was exhausted, and all the words that could be used. She was not angry with him for taking her consent for granted—it was all that remained to be done. Their marriage and their long life together, and the height and crown of mortal existence, were all summed up in that moment. It had been, it was, and now it was past. She sat sunk upon herself by the fire and went over everything. That was the only way it could have been. She had for a time held him apart from her with good reasons, telling him
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 how it could not be. And then she had been silenced; the words might have been withstood, but the throbbing of the heart (she could feel it still against her arm)—how could that be withstood? That was something more than words; and her own, so heavily throbbing, had sprung for a moment into the same measure, like something Joyce had never heard of nor read of—something that made an end of time and space and all limits. It had been too bewildering, too transporting, to think of. It was for a moment only; and whether it ought to have been or not was a different question. It had been, and nothing could undo it. And it was past. That was the one thing of which she was sure.
She had never consented, she had said nothing, she had not deceived him. Though she might have deceived others, him she had not deceived. So long as she could speak to him, she had said No. Afterwards, when her voice failed her, when she could only sob, that moment had been—not by her will, but by his will—by something which was inevitable and could not be resisted. But now it was all over and past. Now she was separated from him as far as if worlds lay between them. There was no longer any time to hesitate. It was all fixed and settled, like the laws of the Medes and Persians. She had seen him for the last time. It was not on that subject that she had any further conflict with herself. The question was not that—not that any longer. The question was, What must be done? what in the few hours that remained to her she must do?
She lay there for a long time where she had sunk down, quite still and motionless, notwithstanding that she had so little time, not even thinking at all. Things flitted across her brain, but scarcely moved her—broken scenes, broken words, a look there, an exclamation here. Oftenest in her confusion it was her own name she seemed to hear—Joyce! Joyce!—called out by everybody in turn, as everybody had appealed to her. Andrew whom she had deceived—he had the most right to blame her. She had never said that she loved him, but he had believed it. Poor Andrew! It would not be any gain to him though she lost. And her lady, who had been so dear, and then had changed—to whom she had said that Joyce would do what was wished of her. And then the oracle—the oracle that had said, ‘You could do—no other thing.’ No, she could do no other thing. That was settled. It was not to be discussed; there was no change possible in that. The only thing was what to do—oh, what to do!
Joyce never thought of taking away her own life. She would have given it joyfully for any of them to save them a pang; but
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 take it away at her own caprice, no. She did not consciously reject this way, for she never took it into consideration. It was not among the things that were possible. And though she roused herself now and then at the end of a long discursive round of imaginations, some of them having no connection at all with what had happened, or was about to happen, to ask herself what she was to do, for a long time she did not think at all. Her candles burned, showing a light at her window long after every other light was out. In the barges lying about the bridge some way down the river, there were people who saw it shining, as was reported afterwards, through all the night. But Joyce was not even thinking. What roused her at last was the chill creeping over her—the cold of the deep night: her fire had fallen low, almost to nothing, a faint little red glow all blackening into darkness, and she shivered, and felt in her uncovered arms and shoulders the creeping dead cold, as if the frost had got in. This physical sensation, the shivering dullness, and ague of the cold, roused her when her trouble did not rouse her. She rose benumbed, her limbs stiff, and her heart sore, and wrapped a shawl round her, drawing it close for warmth. How grateful warmth is, when everything else has gone! It is the one thing in which there seems a little comfort. It brought her to life again, and the necessary movement helped that good effect. But bringing her back to life was to bring her back to thought; and she became conscious that time was running on, and that she had not yet decided what to do.
Time was running on. It was long past midnight, it was morning—the black morning of winter when everything is at its coldest, and all the world is desolate. Folding her arms in her shawl over her bosom to keep warm, her hand encountered the little frame of the miniature pinned on her breast. The touch woke her up with a keen prick of reality—as if it had been a sharp cold steel that had touched her. She unpinned it from her breast, and held it in her hand, and looked at it. There must have been magnetism in it. It seemed to bring a new flood of feeling, and will, and impulse over her. She had felt that strange inspiration in her veins before, that desire to arise and flee, she knew not whither. Her mother’s inheritance left behind her when she had fled—where no one could follow. It was a sad inheritance to come into the world with, but it was the only one that Joyce had. She looked at the pictured face so like her own, and that brief long-ended tragedy became clear to Joyce. The other Joyce had endured as long as she could, and then there had come upon her that irrestrainable despairing desire to fly and be seen no more.
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 Oh that I had wings like a dove! It had not perhaps in some ways been so difficult for her as for the second Joyce it would be. There was nobody to go after her, to move heaven and earth to find her—there were perhaps, Joyce thought, confusedly exaggerating the time, and its changes, as youth is so apt to do—no telegraphs, no railways then—at least there was no father, no lover, no friends ready to put all modes of discovery in motion. For a moment she envied her mother; but then said to herself, with a sudden warm flush all over her. No, no! Thank God, in her case there was no second life involved; nobody to come into the world as she herself had done, in confusion and trouble, with all the lines of her life wrong from her birth, and this tragic conclusion always coming! The touch of the cold little miniature seemed to send thrills and icy touches through her veins. The eyes had a strange look in them, like the eyes of a hunted creature. Mrs. Hayward had said that her own eyes were more deep and true. She rose up to look at herself, to see if perhaps that look had come to her too. A girl does not think what is the expression in her eyes; but they had always been quiet eyes, she thought—not with that look. She went to the glass, with the miniature in her hand, to see. But when she stood before the glass, it was not her own expression, but the strange world of darkness and vacancy beyond, which caught Joyce’s confused and troubled intelligence. She remembered all the fanciful superstitions, half poetry, half mirth, of the countryside. How some one would come behind you and look over your shoulder, and you would see in the mirror the man you were to marry,—your fate; or how perhaps it might be a white-robed ghost, or a death’s-head that would advance out of the unseen and look over your shoulder; or how in that strange fathomless darkness of the mirror there might rise before you scenes—of what was going on among those you loved, or what was to happen in the future, shadows of the real. She could not see her own eyes for the wonder which carried her beyond them, which made her look into the reflected air as if it were another world.
What a waste of time it was, and how the time was running on! Only a few hours now before the step must be taken, and as yet no decision come to as to what it was to be! She went and sat down at the table where were her writing things, and in her writing-case the letters—Mrs. Bellendean’s note of farewell, and Andrew’s—poor Andrew’s! Even now she could not think, but only look at these two momentous bits of paper, and wonder what they would think, how they would feel, whether they would blame
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 themselves. She even smiled to herself at the astonishment, the incredulity that would come over Andrew’s face, and his conviction that whoever she had fled from it could not be from him. The lady would know better—it would give her a pang—but so long as everything came as she wished, the pang would not hurt her, it would go away. And then the wonder, and the questions, and the strong feelings would widen out and die away like circles in the water, and Joyce would go down and disappear like a stone.
Again this vague round of thought and nothing decided on, nothing done—and the time was running on. Twelve hours hence it would be the afternoon of the November day, and he would be here. And before then all must be settled and done. And in the meantime the glow of the fire had gone out in the blackness of the night, and it was cold—cold—a cold that went to the heart.
At breakfast next morning Joyce showed little trace of a sleepless night; her eyes were quite clear, her colour varying, but sometimes bright, her aspect not radiant as might become a girl in her position, yet very clear, like a sky that has cleared after rain. Thinking it all over in the light of after events no one could recollect anything about her that had called for special notice. She was grave, yet not without a smile: and a girl on the eve of the greatest change in her life, though she may be very gay if she is happy, has reason to be grave as well. Joyce was always thoughtful, and there was nothing wonderful in the fact that underneath the soft smile with which she responded to what was said to her there should be a gravity quite natural in the circumstances. No doubt there was a great deal to think about—the opposition that might be raised, the difficulties she would have to encounter. It would not be all plain sailing. Mrs. Hayward, a little anxious in the strength of her newly awakened sympathies, thought that she quite understood. Joyce went out for her usual morning walk with her father, just as usual so far as the Colonel could see. She talked a little more than usual, perhaps to prevent him talking of the great subject of the moment. He for his part was much excited with the information his wife had given. He was full of enthusiasm for Norman. ‘If I had chosen the whole world through I could not have found a man whom I should have liked better,’ he said. ‘I always liked Norman Bellendean. I never could have imagined when we first came in contact in India, he a young sub and I his commanding officer, that he would ever be my son-in-law. How could I, not even knowing that I had—what good fortune was in store for me in finding you, my dear? But he was always a capital fellow. I liked him from the very first
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—fond of his profession and always ready for whatever was wanted—as good a fellow as ever lived,’ cried the Colonel, as he had done on his first introduction into these pages, taking upon him to answer to all the neighbours and tenants for the excellences of Captain Bellendean. Joyce listened very gravely, very sweetly, with a little inclination of her head in assent to all these praises. It pleased her to hear them, even though it was no business of hers.
‘But you must remember,’ she said, ‘always—that if there’s a pain in it, it’s leaving you. You’ve been good, good to me. I never knew what it was——’
‘Good!’ cried the Colonel, ‘there’s no credit in being good to you—and as for pain, my dear, no doubt we’ll miss you dreadfully, but it’s not as if he had to go away with the regiment to the end of the world. We’ll come and see you at Bellendean, and you’ll come to see us. I scarcely consider, with a man I like so thoroughly as Bellendean, that it will be leaving me.’
‘I was very ignorant when I came here,’ said Joyce; ‘I did not know what a father was. I was shy—shy to call you so. My old grandfather was so different. But, father, you have always understood, never discouraged me when I was most cast down, never lost patience. And I wish I could make you always mind that, when perhaps you may think of me—differently from what you do now.’
‘Why should I think of you differently? I may grudge a little to see my pretty Joyce marrying so soon, when I would have liked to keep her to myself: but it is the course of nature, my dear, and what parents must expect.’
‘I will always think upon you like this,’ she said: ‘the river flowing, and the banks green even though it’s winter, and the red oak-leaves stiff on the branches, and all the other b............