words suggested that there was. I only meant that there was a force in you that I hadn’t known of up till now.”

“All right, Cecil, that will do. Don’t apologize to me. It was my mistake.”

“It is a question between ideals, yours and mine⁠—pure abstract ideals, and yours are the nobler. I was bound up in the old vicious notions, and all the time you were splendid and new.” His voice broke. “I must actually thank you for what you have done⁠—for showing me what I really am. Solemnly, I thank you for showing me a true woman. Will you shake hands?”

“Of course I will,” said Lucy, twisting up her other hand in the curtains. “Good night, Cecil. Goodbye. That’s all right. I’m sorry about it. Thank you very much for your gentleness.”

“Let me light your candle, shall I?”

They went into the hall.

“Thank you. Good night again. God bless you, Lucy!”

“Goodbye, Cecil.”

She watched him steal upstairs, while the shadows from three banisters passed over her face like the beat of wings. On the landing he paused strong in his renunciation, and gave her a look of memorable beauty. For all his culture, Cecil was an ascetic at heart, and nothing in his love became him like the leaving of it.

She could never marry. In the tumult of her soul, that stood firm. Cecil believed in her; she must some day believe in herself. She must be one of the women whom she had praised so eloquently, who care for liberty and not for men; she must forget that George loved her, that George had been thinking through her and gained her this honourable release, that George had gone away into⁠—what was it?⁠—the darkness.