Anna Leath, three days later, sat in Miss Painter's drawing-room in the rue de Matignon.

　　Coming up precipitately that morning from the country, shehad reached Paris at one o'clock and Miss Painter's landingsome ten minutes later. Miss Painter's mouldy little man-servant, dissembling a napkin under his arm, had mildlyattempted to oppose her entrance; but Anna, insisting, hadgone straight to the dining-room and surprised her friend--who ate as furtively as certain animals--over a strange mealof cold mutton and lemonade. Ignoring the embarrassment shecaused, she had set forth the object of her journey, andMiss Painter, always hatted and booted for action, hadimmediately hastened out, leaving her to the solitude of thebare fireless drawing-room with its eternal slip-covers and"bowed" shutters.

　　In this inhospitable obscurity Anna had sat alone for closeupon two hours. Both obscurity and solitude were acceptableto her, and impatient as she was to hear the result of theerrand on which she had despatched her hostess, she desiredstill more to be alone. During her long meditation in awhite-swathed chair before the muffled hearth she had beenable for the first time to clear a way through the darknessand confusion of her thoughts. The way did not go far, andher attempt to trace it was as weak and spasmodic as aconvalescent's first efforts to pick up the thread ofliving. She seemed to herself like some one struggling torise from a long sickness of which it would have been somuch easier to die. At Givre she had fallen into a kind oftorpor, a deadness of soul traversed by wild flashes ofpain; but whether she suffered or whether she was numb, sheseemed equally remote from her real living and doing self.

　　It was only the discovery--that very morning--of Owen'sunannounced departure for Paris that had caught her out ofher dream and forced her back to action. The dread of whatthis flight might imply, and of the consequences that mightresult from it, had roused her to the sense of herresponsibility, and from the moment when she had resolved tofollow her step-son, and had made her rapid preparations forpursuit, her mind had begun to work again, feverishly,fitfully, but still with something of its normal order. Inthe train she had been too agitated, too preoccupied withwhat might next await her, to give her thoughts to anythingbut the turning over of dread alternatives; but MissPainter's imperviousness had steadied her, and while shewaited for the sound of the latch-key she resolutelyreturned upon herself.

　　With respect to her outward course she could at least tellherself that she had held to her purpose. She had, aspeople said, "kept up" during the twenty-four hourspreceding George Darrow's departure; had gone with a calmface about her usual business, and even contrived not tooobviously to avoid him. Then, the next day before dawn,from behind the closed shutters where she had kept for halfthe night her dry-eyed vigil, she had heard him drive off tothe train which brought its passengers to Paris in time forthe Calais express.

　　The fact of his taking that train, of his travelling sostraight and far away from her, gave to what had happenedthe implacable outline of reality. He was gone; he wouldnot come back; and her life had ended just as she haddreamed it was beginning. She had no doubt, at first, as tothe absolute inevitability of this conclusion. The man whohad driven away from her house in the autumn dawn was notthe man she had loved; he was a stranger with whom she hadnot a single thought in common. It was terrible, indeed,that he wore the face and spoke in the voice of her friend,and that, as long as he was under one roof with her, themere way in which he moved and looked could bridge at astroke the gulf between them. That, no doubt, was the faultof her exaggerated sensibility to outward things: she wasfrightened to see how it enslaved her. A day or two beforeshe had supposed the sense of honour was her deepestsentiment: if she had smiled at the conventions of others itwas because they were too trivial, not because they were toograve. There were certain dishonours with which she hadnever dreamed that any pact could be made: she had had anincorruptible passion for good faith and fairness.

　　She had supposed that, once Darrow was gone, once she wassafe from the danger of seeing and hearing him, this highdevotion would sustain her. She had believed it would bepossible to separate the image of the man she had thoughthim from that of the man he was. She had even foreseen thehour when she might raise a mournful shrine to the memory ofthe Darrow she had loved, without fear that his double'sshadow would desecrate it. But now she had begun tounderstand that the two men were really one. The Darrow sheworshipped was inseparable from the Darrow she abhorred; andthe inevitable conclusion was that both must go, and she beleft in the desert of a sorrow without memories...

　　But if the future............