The Real Charlotte. 365 



her hand ; her other hand drooped over the side of the 

 chair, holding still in it the sprig of pink hawthorn that her 

 husband had given her in the garden an hour before. Her 

 attitude was full of languor, but her brain was working at its 

 highest pressure, and at this moment she was asking herself 

 what Sir Christopher would say when he heard that she had 

 gone away with Gerald. She had seen him vaguely as one 

 of the crowd of contemptuous or horror-stricken faces that 

 had thronged about her pillow in the early morning, but his 

 opinion had carried no more restraining power than that of 

 Aunt Tish, or Uncle Robert, or Charlotte. Nothing had 

 weighed with her then \ the two principal figures in her life 

 contrasted as simply and convincingly as night and day, and 

 like night and day, too, were the alternative futures that 

 were in her hand to choose from. Her eyes were open to 

 her wrong-doing, but scarcely to her cruelty \ it could not be 

 as bad for Roddy, she thought, to live without her as for 

 her to stay with him and think of Gerald in India, gone 

 away from her for ever. Her reasoning power was easily 

 mastered, her conscience was a thing of habit, and not fitted 

 to grapple with this turbulent passion. She swept towards 

 her ruin like a little boat staggering under more sail than 

 she can carry. But the sight of Christopher, momentary 

 as it was, had startled for an instant the wildness of her 

 thoughts ; the saner breath of the outside world had come 

 with him, and a touch of the self-respect that she had 

 always gained from him made her press her hot forehead 

 against her hand, and realise that the way of transgressors 

 would be hard. 



She remained sitting there, almost motionless, for a long 

 time. She had no wish to occupy herself with anything ; 

 all the things about her had already the air of belonging to 

 a past existence ; her short sovereignty was over, and even 

 the furniture that she had, a few weeks ago, pulled about 

 and rearranged in the first ardour of possession seemed to 

 look at her in a decorous, clannish way, as if she were 

 already an alien. At last she heard the study door open, 

 and immediately afterwards, Christopher's dog-cart went 

 down the drive. It occurred to her that now, if ever, was 

 the time to go to her husband and see whether, by diplo- 

 macy, she could evade the ride that he had asked her to 



