Soames continued to stand, listening. “By this time tomorrow,” he thought, “I may have her death on my hands.” No! it was unfair⁠—monstrous, to put it that way! Sullenness dropped on him again, and he went up to the gallery. He stood at the window. The wind was in the north; it was cold, clear; very blue sky, heavy ragged white clouds chasing across; the river blue, too, through the screen of goldening trees; the woods all rich with colour, glowing, burnished—an early autumn. If it were his own life, would he be taking that risk? “But she’d