look and word then the rapture of the final she tried to think that the life she proposed to had not brought her happiness but she could not put back memory of the days she had spent with her lovers oh the intense hours of anticipation and the wonderful recollections rich and red as the heart of a flower such rapture seemed to her to be worth the remorse that came after and the peace of mind that a life would secure a poor for dreary days and months she the length and the colour of the time � grey week after grey week blank month after blank months void year after void year and she always getting a little older getting older in a lifeless time in a lifeless life a weary life filled with intolerable craving she had endured it once a feeling as if she wanted to go mad she picked up her letters among the letters she received that morning was one from he was still in paris and would not be back for another week or ten days he had been lonely he had missed her and looked forward to their meeting he told her about the opera the people he had met and what they had said about his music but the tender affection of his letter was not to her mind why did he not say that he longed to take her in his arms and kiss her on the lips knitting her brows she tried to think that if he had written more passionately she would have taken the train and gone to him she had sent away on account of scruples of conscience and a life of extended before her but who was this woman to whom had shown his music and who had said that if anything happened to prevent from singing the part she hoped that would give it to her why should she have thought that something would happen to prevent from creating had suggested it to her but how could know she tried to think if she had ever told him she was tired of the stage perhaps he had consulted the stars and had divined her future this woman seemed to know that something might happen and something was happening there could be no doubt about that there was no doubt that she was tired of the stage but perhaps that was on account of hard work perhaps she required a rest in two or three months she might eagerly to the study of for the of she might remain on the stage till she had established the success of his opera this might be if she and were not lovers she had promised that she would not keep him for her lover but that did not mean that she would not sing his opera if she didn another woman would some wretched singer who did not understand the music and it would be a failure would hate her he would believe that her refusal to his opera was a vile plan to do him an injury he did not know what conscience meant � he only understood the legends and the she laughed and a moment afterwards was in difficulties her conduct would seem more incomprehensible to him than it did to she did not wish him to hate her but he would hate her and to avoid seeing her he would not go to and so she would rob her father of his friend � the friend who had kept him company when she deserted him there was another alternative if she liked him well enough to be his mistress she should like him well enough to be his wife but knowing that she would not marry him she took up her other letters and began reading lady liked was there and she hoped would not be detained in london much longer the duke of had proposed to miss and lady was always about with young mr so and so didn t read it all she lay back thinking for this letter about things that interested her no longer had led her thoughts back to self and she inquired why in the midst of all her she had felt that her real life was elsewhere why she had always known that sooner or later the hour would come when she would leave the things which she enjoyed so intensely the idea of departure had never quite died down in her and she had always known that she would be one day quite a different woman she had often had of her future self and of her future life but the moment she tried to what was there the vision faded even now she knew that she would not marry and this not because she would refuse her father anything but merely because it was not to be her eyes went to the piano but on the way there she stopped to ask herself a question why was she in london at this time of year she knew why she did not care to go to � because she was tired of society but why did she not go to some quiet place where she could enjoy the summer weather she would like to sit on the beach and hear the sea her soul threatened to give back a direct answer and she dismissed the question she paced the empty alley facing the road no one was there except a and a small child and she and they shared the solitude she could see the passing and hear the of the heavy harness and seated on one of the seats she drew on the gravel with her said there was no meaning in life that it was no more than an unfortunate accident between two eternal sleeps but she had never been able to believe that this was so and if she had sought to 