The next morning the dread was still there, and sheunderstood that she must snatch herself out of the torpor ofthe will into which she had been gradually sinking, and tellDarrow that she could not be his wife.

　　The knowledge came to her in the watches of a sleeplessnight, when, through the tears of disenchanted passion, shestared back upon her past. There it lay before her, hersole romance, in all its paltry poverty, the cheapest ofcheap adventures, the most pitiful of sentimental blunders.

　　She looked about her room, the room where, for so manyyears, if her heart had been quiescent her thoughts had beenalive, and pictured herself henceforth cowering before athrong of mean suspicions, of unavowed compromises andconcessions. In that moment of self-searching she saw thatSophy Viner had chosen the better part, and that certainrenunciations might enrich where possession would have lefta desert.

　　Passionate reactions of instinct fought against theseefforts of her will. Why should past or future coerce her,when the present was so securely hers? Why insanelysurrender what the other would after all never have? Hersense of irony whispered that if she sent away Darrow itwould not be to Sophy Viner, but to the first woman whocrossed his path--as, in a similar hour, Sophy Viner herselfhad crossed it...But the mere fact that she could think suchthings of him sent her shuddering back to the opposite pole.

　　She pictured herself gradually subdued to such a conceptionof life and love, she pictured Effie growing up under theinfluence of the woman she saw herself becoming--and she hidher eyes from the humiliation of the picture...

　　They were at luncheon when the summons that Darrow expectedwas brought to him. He handed the telegram to Anna, and shelearned that his Ambassador, on the way to a German cure,was to be in Paris the next evening and wished to conferwith him there before he went back to London. The idea thatthe decisive moment was at hand was so agitating to her thatwhen luncheon was over she slipped away to the terrace andthence went down alone to the garden. The day was grey butmild, with the heaviness of decay in the air. She rambledon aimlessly, following under the denuded boughs the pathshe and Darrow had taken on their first walk to the river.

　　She was sure he would not try to overtake her: sure he wouldguess why she wished to be alone. There were moments whenit seemed to double her loneliness to be so certain of hisreading her heart while she was so desperately ignorant ofhis...

　　She wandered on for more than an hour, and when she returnedto the house she saw, as she entered the hall, that Darrowwas seated at the desk in Owen's study. He heard her step,and looking up turned in his chair without rising. Theireyes met, and she saw that his were clear and smiling. Hehad a heap of papers at his elbow and was evidently engagedin some official correspondence. She wondered that he couldaddress himself so composedly to his task, and thenironically reflected that such detachment was a sign of hissuperiority. She crossed the threshold and went toward him;but as she advanced she had a sudden vision of Owen,standing outside in the cold autumn dusk and watching Darrowand Sophy Viner as they faced each other across the lamplitdesk...The evocation was so vivid that it caught her breathlike a blow, and she sank down helplessly on the divan amongthe piled-up books. Distinctly, at the moment, sheunderstood that the end had come. "When he speaks to me Iwill tell him!" she thought...

　　Darrow, laying aside his pen, looked at her for a moment insilence; then he stood up and shut the door.

　　"I must go to-morrow early," he said, sitti............