strangers. he glimpsed the white-ribboned bottoms of her pantalettes. floated in the luminous clearing behind Sarah??s dark figure. .

perhaps I should have written ??On the Horizontality of Exis-tence
perhaps I should have written ??On the Horizontality of Exis-tence. He hesitated a moment then; but the memory of the surly look on the dissenting dairyman??s face kept Charles to his original chivalrous intention: to show the poor woman that not ev-erybody in her world was a barbarian. The hunting accident has just taken place: the Lord of La Garaye attends to his fallen lady. my knowledge of the spoken tongue is not good. he added a pleasant astringency to Lyme society; for when he was with you you felt he was always hovering a little. since she was not unaware of Mrs.??Charles grinned. Fairley??s deepest rage was that she could not speak ill of the secretary-companion to her underlings. They bubbled as the best champagne bubbles. though lightly.??Your future wife is a better judge than you are of such matters. One. bending. No man had ever paid me the kind of attentions that he did??I speak of when he was mending. But they don??t. I apologize. there gravely??are not all declared lovers the world??s fool???to mount the stairs to his rooms and interrogate his good-looking face in the mirror. could drive her.. And so.This instinctual profundity of insight was the first curse of her life; the second was her education. lived very largely for pleasure .There would have been a place in the Gestapo for the lady; she had a way of interrogation that could reduce the sturdiest girls to tears in the first five minutes. However. more learned and altogether more nobly gendered pair down by the sea. The sleeper??s face was turned away from him.

to work again from half past eleven to half past four. Charles. though he spoke quickly enough when Charles asked him how much he owed for the bowl of excellent milk. already suspected but not faced. to ask why Sarah. found himself telling this mere milkmaid something he had previously told only to himself. the same indigo dress with the white collar. Poulteney had devoted some thought to the choice of passage; and had been sadly torn between Psalm 119 (??Blessed are the undefiled??) and Psalm 140 (??Deliver me.??I know a secluded place nearby.. Poulteney had two obsessions: or two aspects of the same obsession.One needs no further explanation. But you will not go to the house again.. I am afraid. two others and the thumb under his chin. Even Darwin never quite shook off the Swedish fetters. ??There was talk of marriage.????Mr. Poulteney felt only irritation. The slight gloom that had oppressed him the previous day had blown away with the clouds.????What! From a mere milkmaid? Impossible. and yet he had not really understood Darwin. Unfortunately there was now a duenna present??Mrs.. to his own amazement.

Poulteney was inwardly shocked.. the lack of reason for such sorrow; as if the spring was natural in itself. a pleasure he strictly forbade himself. to whom it had become familiar some three years previously. When I was your age . I will not be responsible otherwise. Since then she has waited.??They walked on a few paces before he answered; for a moment Charles seemed inclined to be serious. were known as ??swells??; but the new young prosperous artisans and would-be superior domestics like Sam had gone into competition sarto-rially. and he nodded. ??He wished me to go with him back to France. Above all..Now Ernestina had seen the mistake of her rivals: that no wife thrown at Charles??s head would ever touch his heart. oblivious of the blood sacrifice her pitiless stone face de-manded.It was not until towards the end of the visit that Charles began to realize a quite new aspect of the situation. a man of caprice.One night. and returned to Mrs.????But is not the deprivation you describe one we all share in our different ways??? She shook her head with a surprising vehemence. a dark shadow. Between ourselves. and traveled much; she knew he was eleven years older than herself; she knew he was attractive to women. . For Charles had faults.

but because of that fused rare power that was her essence??understanding and emotion. Such a path is difficult to reascend. she understood??if you kicked her.It opened out very agreeably. now associated with them. for instance. people of some taste. with something of the abruptness of a disin-clined bather who hovers at the brink. ??I possess this now. yet easy to unbend when the company was to his taste. Fursey-Harris himself has earnestly endeavored to show to the woman the hopelessness. the cool gray eyes. do I not?????You do. Poulteney knew herself many lengths behind in that particular race for piety. surrounded by dense thickets of brambles and dogwood; a kind of minute green amphitheater. Poulteney; to be frank.?? Mary spoke in a dialect notorious for its contempt of pro-nouns and suffixes. We are not to dispute His under-standing. in number. I think it made me see more clearly . condemned.The reason was simple. over the port. There is no surer sign of a happy house than a happy maidservant at its door. She walked lightly and surely.??I ask but one hour of your time.

he had shot at a very strange bird that ran from the border of one of his uncle??s wheatfields.??I ask but one hour of your time.????I did not mean to . shadowy.Perhaps that was because Sam supplied something so very necessary in his life??a daily opportunity for chatter.??Charles craned out of the window.??The sun??s rays had disappeared after their one brief illumi-nation.??And so the man. and referred to an island in Greece. I was first of all as if frozen with horror at the realization of my mistake??and yet so horrible was it .. for he was carefully equipped for his role. Sarah rose at once to leave the room.Accordingly. It was fortunate that he did. Because you are educated. She saw that there was suffering; and she prayed that it would end.????Ursa? Are you speaking Latin now? Never mind. but still with the devil??s singe on him. I don??t know how to say it. But its highly fossiliferous nature and its mobility make it a Mecca for the British paleontologist.I will not make her teeter on the windowsill; or sway forward. she did turn and go on. Smithson. 1867. a deprivation at first made easy for her by the wetness of the weather those following two weeks.

He says of one. Poulteney and Mrs.??Sarah stood with bowed head.It was to banish such gloomy forebodings. hair ??dusted?? and tinted . Because you are not a wom-an. Genesis is a great lie; but it is also a great poem; and a six-thousand-year-old womb is much warmer than one that stretches for two thousand million. ??You look to sea..??Charles had to close his eye then in a hurry. and he was accordingly granted an afternoon for his ??wretched grubbing?? among the stones. Two days ago I was nearly overcome by madness. we make. gardeners. a good deal more like a startled roebuck than a worldly En-glish gentleman. But morality without mercy I detest rather more.. and she wanted to be sure.??I have something unhappy to communicate. no less. But she does not want to be cured. I know that by now I should be truly dead . handsome. I keep it on for my dear husband??s sake. promising Miss Woodruff that as soon as he had seen his family and provided himself with a new ship??another of his lies was that he was to be promoted captain on his return??he would come back here. From Mama?????I know that something happened .

Her father had forced her out of her own class.The vicar of Lyme at that time was a comparatively emancipated man theologically. at any rate an impulse made him turn and go back to her drawing room.. She had overslept. on her back. I was frightened and he was very kind. The snobs?? struggle was much more with the aspirate; a fierce struggle. for she had turned. with a powder of snow on the ground. he once again hopscotched out of science??this time. a small red moroc-co volume in her left hand and her right hand holding her fireshield (an object rather like a long-paddled Ping-Pong bat. But heaven had punished this son. as he hammered and bent and examined his way along the shore. one the vicar had in fact previously requested her not to ask. Perhaps I heard what he did not mean. I took pleasure in it. I did not know yesterday that you were Mrs. Far from it. Poulteney. That moment redeemed an infinity of later difficulties; and perhaps. It was an end to chains. ??Now this girl??what is her name??? Mary???this charming Miss Mary may be great fun to tease and be teased by??let me finish??but I am told she is a gentle trusting creature at heart. He went down to the drawing room. in the most emancipated of the aristocracy. It stood right at the seawardmost end.

Weller would have answered the bag of soot. He began to frequent the conversazioni of the Geological Society.????Never mind. But it went on and on. that life was passing him by.??I wish you to show that this . Life was the correct apparatus; it was heresy to think otherwise; but meanwhile the cross had to be borne. one incisively sharp and blustery morning in the late March of 1867. poor ??Tragedy?? was mad. because. He smiled at her. a motive . and then was mock-angry with him for endangering life and limb. and pronounced green sickness. but at the edge of her apron. propped herself up in bed and once more turned to the page with the sprig of jasmine..?????Most pitifully. the celebrated Madame Bovary. she won??t be moved.. Certainly I intended at this stage (Chap.??Charles murmured a polite agreement.????Your aunt has already extracted every detail of that pleasant evening from me. since he was speaking of the girl he had raised his hat to on the previous afternoon. Thus they are in the same position as the drunkard brought up before the Lord Mayor.

There she had written out. Pray read and take to your heart. she said as much. He seemed overjoyed to see me.??Charles smiled back. Fairley had so nobly forced herself to do her duty. There were two or three meadows around it. Tranter liked pretty girls; and pretty. where a russet-sailed and westward-headed brig could be seen in a patch of sunlight some five miles out. And I knew his color there was far more natural than the other. There was first of all a very material dispute to arbitrate upon??Ernestina??s folly in wearing grenadine when it was still merino weather. But he told me he should wait until I joined him. a faint opacity in his suitably solemn eyes. But for Charles. for a substantial fraction of the running costs of his church and also for the happy performance of his nonliturgical duties among the poor; and the other was the representa-tive of God. Or indeed. You are not too fond. He had been frank enough to admit to himself that it contained. very subtly but quite unmistakably.. he saw Sam wait-ing. ??You haven??t reconsidered my suggestion??that you should leave this place?????If I went to London. that Charles had entered when he had climbed the path from the shore at Pinhay Bay; and it was this same place whose eastern half was called Ware Commons.??Still the mouth remained clamped shut; and a third party might well have wondered what horror could be coming. Then he moved forward to the edge of the plateau. I don??t give a fig for birth.

back towards the sea. rather than emotional. perhaps too general. He had thrust the handsome bouquet into the mischievous Mary??s arms. He hesitated a moment then; but the memory of the surly look on the dissenting dairyman??s face kept Charles to his original chivalrous intention: to show the poor woman that not ev-erybody in her world was a barbarian. . Poulteney might pon-derously have overlooked that.. some of them. Poulteney placed great reliance on the power of the tract. Intelligent idlers always have.But I am a novelist. It was half past ten.??I am sure that is your chair.Your predicament. . It had not. Poulteney and dumb incomprehension??like abashed sheep rather than converted sinners. Ernestina??s mother??????Will be wasting her time. ma??m. in a word. a giggle. one is born with a sad temperament. But its highly fossiliferous nature and its mobility make it a Mecca for the British paleontologist. light. Tranter wishes to be kind.

. Suppose Mrs. I do not like them so close. He went down a steep grass slope and knocked on the back door of the cottage. until I have spoken with Mrs. blush-ing. her eyes intense. I think you should speak to Sam. Like many insulated Victorian dowagers. Not all is lost to expedience. still with her in the afternoon. But the great ashes reached their still bare branches over deserted woodland. ??Permit me to insist??these matters are like wounds.??She looked up at him again then. He sensed that Mrs. Tranter smiled. It was now one o??clock. . which stood.??Silence. that generous mouth. then came out with it. This was certainly why the poem struck so deep into so many feminine hearts in that decade. this is unconsciously what attracted Charles to them; he had scientific reasons. then must have passed less peaceful days. for he was carefully equipped for his role.

the flood of mechanistic science??the ability to close one??s eyes to one??s own absurd stiffness was essential. dear girl. immor-tality is unbelievable. For that we can thank his scientific hobbies. with her saintly nose out of joint. This stone must come from the oolite at Portland. Now Mrs. Poulteney saw her servants with genuinely attentive and sometimes positively religious faces. to a stranger. civilization. guffaws from Punch (one joke showed a group of gentlemen besieging a female Cabinet minister.??Miss Woodruff. Smithson. but candlelight never did badly by any woman. But at least concede the impossibility of your demand. The dead man??s clothes still hung in his wardrobe. Ernestina plucked Charles??s sleeve. while she was ill.??He meant it merely as encouragement to continue; but she took him literally. was most patently a prostitute in the making. He had rather the face of the Duke of Wellington; but His character was more that of a shrewd lawyer..The Cobb has invited what familiarity breeds for at least seven hundred years. and by most fashionable women. He had touched exactly that same sore spot with his uncle. a passionate Portuguese marquesa.

Oh.. almost dewlaps. I should like to see that palace of piety burned to the ground and its owner with it. censor it. though sadly. She sank to her knees.There were other items: an ability??formidable in itself and almost unique??not often to get on Mrs. a female soldier??a touch only.????But are your two household gods quite free of blame? Who was it preached the happiness of the greatest number?????I do not dispute the maxim. her fat arms shiny with suds.??I meant only to suggest that social privilege does not necessarily bring happiness. deliberately came out into the hall??and insisted that he must not stand upon cere-mony; and were not his clothes the best proof of his excuses? So Mary smilingly took his ashplant and his rucksack. he had become blind: had not seen her for what she was. The ground about him was studded gold and pale yellow with celandines and primroses and banked by the bridal white of densely blossoming sloe; where jubilantly green-tipped elders shaded the mossy banks of the little brook he had drunk from were clusters of moschatel and woodsorrel. he stepped forward as soon as the wind allowed. and knew the world and its absurdities as only an intelligent Irishman can; which is to say that where his knowledge or memory failed him. and found nothing; she had never had a serious illness in her life; she had none of the lethargy. in short. He plainly did not allow delicacy to stand in the way of prophetic judgment. Fortunately none of these houses overlooked the junction of cart track and lane. I did not wish to spoil that delightful dinner. but both lost and lured he felt. Ernestina did her best to be angry with her; on the impossibility of having dinner at five; on the subject of the funereal furniture that choked the other rooms; on the subject of her aunt??s oversolicitude for her fair name (she would not believe that the bridegroom and bride-to-be might wish to sit alone. You imagine perhaps that she would have swollen. which sat roundly.

if not appearance. had not some last remnant of sanity mercifully stopped me at the door. that Charles??s age was not; but do not think that as he stood there he did not know this. but in those brief poised secondsabove the waiting sea.??She has relatives?????I understand not. As he talked. then went on. To surprise him; therefore she had deliberately followed him. But no doubt he told her he was one of our unfortunate coreligionists in that misguided country. a woman most patently dangerous??not consciously so. miss. He hesitated. . the Burmah cheroot that accom-panied it a pleasant surprise; and these two men still lived in a world where strangers of intelligence shared a common landscape of knowledge. There were better-class people. ??No. And with His infinite compassion He will??????But supposing He did not?????My dear Mrs. By not exhibiting your shame. and the door opened to reveal Mary bearing a vase with a positive fountain of spring flowers. his dead sister. she dictated a letter. The area had an obscure. locked in a mutual incomprehension. Besides he was a very good doctor. she was a peasant; and peasants live much closer to real values than town helots.?? Mrs.

and cannot believe.??But she turned and sat quickly and gracefully sideways on a hummock several feet in front of the tree. a pigherd or two. with her pretty arms folded.Yet this distance. tinker with it . It fell open. there walks the French Lieutenant??s Whore??oh yes. Tests vary in shape. Fairley. I think Mrs. the thatched and slated roofs of Lyme itself; a town that had its heyday in the Middle Ages and has been declining ever since. The name of the place? The Dairy. There was the mandatory double visit to church on Sundays; and there was also a daily morning service??a hymn. in this localized sense of the word. though with very different expres-sions.??What you call my obstinacy is my only succor. A scattered handful of anemones lay on the grass around it. That one in the gray dress? Who is so ugly to look at??? This was unkind of Charles. but it can seem mere perversity in ordinary life. That is why. He had realized she was more intelligent and independent than she seemed; he now guessed darker quali-ties.??Miss Woodruff. in place of the desire to do good for good??s sake. Up this grassland she might be seen walking.?? There was an audible outbreath.

Unprepared for this articulate account of her feelings. Her humor did not exactly irritate him. the more real monster. and scent of syringa and lilac mingled with the blackbirds?? songs.Also. a twofacedness had cancered the century.??A demang. Insipid her verse is. the mouth he could not see. Dahn out there. watching from the lawn beneath that dim upper window in Marlborough House; I know in the context of my book??s reality that Sarah would never have brushed away her tears and leaned down and delivered a chapter of revelation. when no doubt she would be recovered?Charles??s solicitous inquiries??should the doctor not be called???being politely answered in the negative. Talbot. She secretly pleased Mrs. Since they were holding hands. It had been furnished for her and to her taste.?? Now she turned fully towards him. But he heard a little stream nearby and quenched his thirst; wetted his handkerchief and patted his face; and then he began to look around him.So Mrs. by a Town Council singleminded in its concern for the communal blad-der. The cart track eventually ran out into a small lane. in number. ma??m. and she smiled at him. a motive . as that in our own Hollywood films of ??real?? life.

and burst into an outraged anathema; you see the two girls. since he had moved commercially into central London. mum.????I am not like Lady Cotton. It was a bitterly cold night. whose name now he could not even remember. heavy-chinned faces popular in the Edwardian Age??the Gibson Girl type of beauty. to the edge of the cliff meadow; and stared out to sea a long moment; then turned to look at him still standing by the gorse: a strange.????Let it remain so. as if that subject was banned.????What does that signify. that pinched the lips together in condign rejection of all that threatened her two life principles: the one being (I will borrow Treitschke??s sarcastic formulation) that ??Civilization is Soap?? and the other. But he ended by bowing and smiling urbanely.. adrift in the slow entire of Victorian time. dear aunt... Ernestina had already warned Charles of this; that he must regard himself as no more than a beast in a menagerie and take as amiably as he could the crude stares and the poking umbrellas. one wonders.But one day. Poulteney to condemn severely the personal principles of the first and the political ones of the second);* then on to last Sunday??s sermon. or rather the forbidden was about to engage in him. at any rate an impulse made him turn and go back to her drawing room. should wish to enter her house. .

?? The vicar was unhelpful. Because you are educated. ??I found it central to nothing but the sheerest absurdity. Poulteney to grasp the implied compliment.????I do not wish to speak of it..??I should not have followed you. Tranter??s.????You have come. she was as ignorant as her mistress; but she did not share Mrs. It was certainly this which made him walk that afternoon to the place.. but on foot this seemingly unimportant wilderness gains a strange extension. at Ernestina??s grave face. In short. They had barely a common lan-guage. blush-ing. I will come here each afternoon. but her skin had a vigor.??Some moments passed before Charles grasped the meaning of that last word. did not revert into Charles??s hands for another two years. and burst into an outraged anathema; you see the two girls.Well. Was not the supposedly converted Disraeli later heard. The wind moved them. Sam.

He was more like some modern working-class man who thinks a keen knowledge of cars a sign of his social progress. to mutter the prayers for the dead in He-brew? And was not Gladstone. But this new taradiddle now??the extension of franchise. After all. an independence of spirit; there was also a silent contradiction of any sympathy; a determination to be what she was.??Sam.However. The wind moved them. That is all. Talbot?? were not your suspicions aroused by that? It is hardly the conduct of a man with honorable intentions. a certainty of the innocence of this creature. One was a shepherd. She smiled even. Her loosened hair fell over the page. bade her stay. she had taken her post with the Talbots. Poulteney??s face a fortnight before. This spy. His answers to her discreetly playful interrogations about his past conquests were always discreetly playful in return; and that was the rub. The younger man looked down with a small smile. or so it was generally supposed. I am not seeking to defend myself. to the very regular beat of the narrative poem she is reading. though still several feet away. as if she wanted to giggle. and infinitely the least selfishness; and physical charms to match .

????Your aunt has already extracted every detail of that pleasant evening from me. But they don??t. Though set in the seventeenth century it is transparently a eulogy of Florence Nightingale. her fat arms shiny with suds. not discretion. when she was convalescent. hysterical sort of tears that presage violent action; but those produced by a profound conditional.In her room that afternoon she unbuttoned her dress and stood before her mirror in her chemise and petticoats. he would do.??Then.Dr. that I had let a spar that might have saved me drift out of reach. ??Tis the way ??e speaks. Because you are not a wom-an. Poulteney as a storm cone to a fisherman; but she observed convention.He began to cover the ambiguous face in lather. as she pirouetted. to be free myself.????I do not wish to speak of it. and Charles had been strictly forbidden ever to look again at any woman under the age of sixty??a condition Aunt Tranter mercifully escaped by just one year??Ernestina turned back into her room. It must be poor Tragedy. A gentleman in one of the great houses that lie behind the Undercliff performed a quiet Anschluss??with. But he had sternly forbidden himself to go anywhere near the cliff-meadow; if he met Miss Woodruff.??He stared at her.??I am sure that is your chair. ??Respectability is what does not give me offense.

it was to her a fact as rock-fundamental as that the world was round or that the Bishop of Exeter was Dr. sir. more quietly. probity. The voice. It was the same one as she had chosen for that first interview??Psalm 119: ??Blessed are the undefiled in the way. exquisitely clear.??No more was said. but at the edge of her apron. at least amongthe flints below the bluff. Charles was a quite competent ornithologist and botanist into the bargain. ??Your ammonites will never hold such mysteries as that. who made more; for no young male ever set foot in the drawing room of the house overlooking Hyde Park who had not been as well vetted as any modern security department vets its atomic scientists. too. Convenience; and they were accordingly long ago pulled down. who is reading. absentminded. That moment redeemed an infinity of later difficulties; and perhaps.But though death may be delayed. Spiders that should be hibernating run over the baking November rocks; blackbirds sing in December. but this she took to be the result of feminine vanity and feminine weak-ness. Why Mrs. and Charles had been strictly forbidden ever to look again at any woman under the age of sixty??a condition Aunt Tranter mercifully escaped by just one year??Ernestina turned back into her room. and that the heels of her shoes were mudstained. had pressed the civic authorities to have the track gated..

or the colder air. of course??it being Lent??a secular concert. He found a way down to the foot of the bluff and began to search among the scree for his tests.????Yes. But she has been living principally on her savings from her previous situation. the empty horizon.?? Nor did it interest her that Miss Sarah was a ??skilled and dutiful teacher?? or that ??My infants have deeply missed her. unless a passing owl??standing at the open window of her unlit bedroom. . but was not that face a little characterless. he found himself greeted only by that lady: Ernestina had passed a slightly disturbed night. the solemn young paterfamili-as; then smiled indulgently at his own faces and euphoria; poised. yet as much implosive as directed at Charles. didn??t she show me not-on! And it wasn??t just the talking I tried with her. So let us see how Charles and Ernestina are crossing one particular such desert. The snobs?? struggle was much more with the aspirate; a fierce struggle. He sits up and murmurs. before her father??s social ambitions drove such peasant procedures from their way of life. of her being unfairly outcast. And what I say is sound Christian doctrine. very well. seen sleeping so. There was a tight and absurdly long coat to match; a canvas wideawake hat of an indeterminate beige; a massive ash-plant. 1867.??Is this the fear that keeps you at Lyme?????In part.?? Her reaction was to look away; he had reprimanded her.

in his other hand. towards philosophies that reduce morality to a hypocrisy and duty to a straw hut in a hurricane. Sarah had merely to look round to see if she was alone.Charles suffered this sudden access of respect for his every wish with good humor. one last poised look.??They have gone. her way of indicating that a subject had been pronounced on by her. Charles cautiously opened an eye. fewer believed its theories. Tories like Mrs. She had infi-nitely the most life. She confessed that she had forgotten; Mrs. Indeed she made a pretense of being very sorry for ??poor Miss Woodruff?? and her reports were plentifully seasoned with ??I fear?? and ??I am afraid. Charles stood close behind her; coughed. a figure from myth. to see if she could mend. out of its glass case in the drawing room at Winsyatt. Mrs. Here she had better data than the vicar.????Then I have no fears for you. but because it was less real; a mythical world where naked beauty mattered far more than naked truth. It lit her face.??And that too was a step; for there was a bitterness in her voice. in the most urgent terms.??The little doctor eyed him sideways. But he swallowed his grief.

But no doubt he told her he was one of our unfortunate coreligionists in that misguided country. In a way. Poulteney had been a total. Ernestina??s qualms about her social status were therefore rather farfetched.??Will you permit me to say something first? Something I have perhaps. the scents. He contributed one or two essays on his journeys in remoter places to the fashion-able magazines; indeed an enterprising publisher asked him to write a book after the nine months he spent in Portugal.She knew Sarah faced penury; and lay awake at nights imagining scenes from the more romantic literature of her adolescence. Not an era. Poulteney from the start. and he winked. and a thousand other misleading names) that one really required of a proper English gentleman of the time. splintering hesitantly in the breeze before it slipped away in sudden alarm. Tranter. and dream. But heaven had punished this son. Poulteney approached the subject. the greatest master of the ambiguous statement.????Assuredly not.?? he had once said to her. You must certainly decamp. was still faintly under the influence of Lavater??s Physiognomy. and Charles now saw a scientific as well as a humanitarian reason in his adventure. It was plain their intention had been to turn up the path on which he stood.One night. She now asked a question; and the effect was remark-able.

????Sometimes I think he had nothing to do with the ship-wreck. went to a bookshelf at the back of the narrow room. to let live. It retained traces of a rural accent. consoled herself by remem-bering. a mermaid??s tail.????Is that what made you laugh?????Yes. lying at his feet. the despiser of novels. even by Victorian standards; and they had never in the least troubled Charles. as drunkards like drinking. until he was certain they had gone. Leaving his very comfortable little establishment in Kensing-ton was not the least of Charles??s impending sacrifices; and he could bear only just so much reminding of it. one wonders. He was slim.??He left a silence. And then we had begun by deceiving. Sarah had twigged Mrs. and walk out alone); and above all on the subject of Ernestina??s being in Lyme at all. had fainted twice within the last week.??And I wish to hear what passed between you and Papa last Thursday. I??m not sitting with a socialist. But then.She lowered her eyes. A duke. and plot.

He had touched exactly that same sore spot with his uncle.??I do not know her. and the vicar had been as frequent a visitor as the doctors who so repeatedly had to assure her that she was suffering from a trivial stomach upset and not the dreaded Oriental killer. Sam felt he was talking too much. almost ruddy. that he would take it as soon as he arrived there. a stiff hand under her elbow. Perhaps Ernestina??s puzzlement and distress were not far removed from those of Charles. This marked a new stage of his awareness of Sarah. Suddenly she looked at Charles. while she was ill. Their nor-mal face was a mixture of fear at Mrs. and as overdressed and overequipped as he was that day. madymosseile.But the most abominable thing of all was that even outside her house she acknowledged no bounds to her authority. the kindest old soul.?? She paused. It is also treacherous. in everything but looks and history. on the outskirts of Lyme.?? instead of what it so Victorianly was: ??I cannot possess this forever. the old lady abhorred impertinence and forwardness.The local spy??and there was one??might thus have deduced that these two were strangers. he glimpsed the white-ribboned bottoms of her pantalettes. floated in the luminous clearing behind Sarah??s dark figure. .