LITMIR.BIZ

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can't I do as I like?”

      “You've not seen Mrs. Morel before?” Miriam was saying to Clara.

      “No; but she's so nice!”

      “Yes,” said Miriam, dropping her head; “in some ways she's very fine.”

      “I should think so.”

      “Had Paul told you much about her?”

      “He had talked a good deal.”

      “Ha!”

      There was silence until he returned with the book.

      “When will you want it back?” Miriam asked.

      “When you like,” he answered.

      Clara turned to go indoors, whilst he accompanied Miriam to the gate.

      “When will you come up to Willey Farm?” the latter asked.

      “I couldn't say,” replied Clara.

      “Mother asked me to say she'd be pleased to see you any time, if you cared to come.”

      “Thank you; I should like to, but I can't say when.”

      “Oh, very well!” exclaimed Miriam rather bitterly, turning away.

      She went down the path with her mouth to the flowers he had given her.

      “You're sure you won't come in?” he said.

      “No, thanks.”

      “We are going to chapel.”

      “Ah, I shall see you, then!” Miriam was very bitter.

      “Yes.”

      They parted. He felt guilty towards her. She was bitter, and she scorned him. He still belonged to herself, she believed; yet he could have Clara, take her home, sit with her next his mother in chapel, give her the same hymn-book he had given herself years before. She heard him running quickly indoors.

      But he did not go straight in. Halting on the plot of grass, he heard his mother's voice, then Clara's answer:

      “What I hate is the bloodhound quality in Miriam.”

      “Yes,” said his mother quickly, “yes; DOESN'T it make you hate her, now!”

      His heart went hot, and he was angry with them for talking about the girl. What right had they to say that? Something in the speech itself stung him into a flame of hate against Miriam. Then his own heart rebelled furiously at Clara's taking the liberty of speaking so about Miriam. After all, the girl was the better woman of the two, he thought, if it came to goodness. He went indoors. His mother looked excited. She was beating with her hand rhythmically on the sofa-arm, as women do who are wearing out. He could never bear to see the movement. There was a silence; then he began to talk.

      In chapel Miriam saw him find the place in the hymn-book for Clara, in exactly the same way as he used for herself. And during the sermon he could see the girl across the chapel, her hat throwing a dark shadow over her face. What did she think, seeing Clara with him? He did not stop to consider. He felt himself cruel towards Miriam.

      After chapel he went over Pentrich with Clara. It was a dark autumn night. They had said good-bye to Miriam, and his heart had smitten him as he left the girl alone. “But it serves her right,” he said inside himself, and it almost gave him pleasure to go off under her eyes with this other handsome woman.

      There was a scent of damp leaves in the darkness. Clara's hand lay warm and inert in his own as they walked. He was full of conflict. The battle that raged inside him made him feel desperate.

      Up Pentrich Hill Clara leaned against him as he went. He slid his arm round her waist. Feeling the strong motion of her body under his arm as she walked, the tightness in his chest because of Miriam relaxed, and the hot blood bathed him. He held her closer and closer.

      Then: “You still keep on with Miriam,” she said quietly.

      “Only talk. There never WAS a great deal more than talk between us,” he said bitterly.

      “Your mother doesn't care for her,” said Clara.

      “No, or I might have married her. But it's all up really!”

      Suddenly his voice went passionate with hate.

      “If I was with her now, we should be jawing about the 'Christian Mystery', or some such tack. Thank God, I'm not!”

      They walked on in silence for some time.

      “But you can't really give her up,” said Clara.

      “I don't give her up, because there's nothing to give,” he said.

      “There is for her.”

      “I don't know why she and I shouldn't be friends as long as we live,” he said. “But it'll only be friends.”

      Clara drew away from him, leaning away from contact with him.

      “What are you drawing away for?” he asked.

      She did not answer, but drew farther from him.

      “Why do you want to walk alone?” he asked.

      Still there was no answer. She walked resentfully, hanging her head.

      “Because I said I would be friends with Miriam!” he exclaimed.

      She would not answer him anything.

      “I tell you it's only words that go between us,” he persisted, trying to take her again.

      She resisted. Suddenly he strode across in front of her, barring her way.

      “Damn it!” he said. “What do you want now?”

      “You'd better run after Miriam,” mocked Clara.

      The blood flamed up in him. He stood showing his teeth. She drooped sulkily. The lane was dark, quite lonely. He suddenly caught her in his arms, stretched forward, and put his mouth on her face in a kiss of rage. She turned frantically to avoid him. He held her fast. Hard and relentless his mouth came for her. Her breasts hurt against the wall of his chest. Helpless, she went loose in his arms, and he kissed her, and kissed her.

      He heard people coming down the hill.

      “Stand up! stand up!” he said thickly, gripping her arm till it hurt. If he had let go, she would have sunk to the ground.

      She sighed and walked dizzily beside him. They went on in silence.

      “We will go over the fields,” he said; and then she woke up.

      But she let herself be helped over the stile, and she walked in silence with him over the first dark field. It was the way to Nottingham and to the station, she knew. He seemed to be looking about. They came out on a bare hilltop where stood the dark figure of the ruined windmill. There he halted. They stood together high up in the darkness, looking at the lights scattered on the night before them, handfuls of glittering points, villages lying high and low on the dark, here and there.

      “Like treading among the stars,” he said, with a quaky laugh.

      Then he took her in his arms, and held her fast. She moved aside her mouth to ask, dogged and low:

      “What time is it?”

      “It doesn't matter,” he pleaded thickly.

      “Yes it does—yes! I must go!”

      “It's early yet,” he said.

      “What time is it?” she insisted.

      All round lay the black night, speckled and spangled with lights.

      “I don't know.”

      She put her hand on his chest, feeling for his watch. He felt the joints fuse into fire. She groped in his waistcoat pocket, while he stood panting. In the darkness she could see the round, pale face of the watch,

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