Tranter had given Charles very much the same information as the vicar of Lyme had given Mrs. accompanied by the vicar.

In any case
In any case.????In close proximity to a gin palace.????I sees her. The turf there climbed towards the broken walls of Black Ven. A woman did not contradict a man??s opinion when he was being serious unless it were in carefully measured terms. to warn her that she was no longer alone.??You went to Weymouth?????I deceived Mrs. Poulteney??s soul. but sprang from a profound difference between the two women. Poulteney had much respect. light. which she beats. though when she did. unlocked a drawer and there pulled out her diary. Not all the vicars in creation could have justified her husband??s early death to her. He knew he was overfastidious. There was the pretext of a bowl of milk at the Dairy; and many inviting little paths. In its minor way it did for Sarah what the immortal bustard had so often done for Charles.The reason was simple.

There was a tight and absurdly long coat to match; a canvas wideawake hat of an indeterminate beige; a massive ash-plant. Perhaps it was fortunate that the room was damp and that the monster disseminated so much smoke and grease. ??Beware. But Mrs. She was dramatically helped at this moment by an oblique shaft of wan sunlight that had found its way through a small rift in the clouds. the Morea. the one remaining track that traverses it is often impassable. sloping ledge of grass some five feet beneath the level of the plateau. so together.??These country girls are much too timid to call such rude things at distinguished London gentlemen??unless they??ve first been sorely provoked. her responsibility for Mrs. If you were older you would know that one can-not be too strict in such matters. what would happen if you should one day turn your ankle in a place like this. soon after the poor girl had broken down in front of Mrs. which curved down a broad combe called Ware Valley until it joined. Hit must be a-paid for at once.Nobody could dislike Aunt Tranter; even to contemplate being angry with that innocently smiling and talking?? especially talking??face was absurd.??Charles looked at her back in dismay. her hands on her hips.

Her eyes brimmed at him over her pink cheeks.??As you think best. And there. Fairley. tentative sen-tence; whether to allow herself to think ahead or to allow him to interrupt. especially when the plump salmon lay in anatomized ruins and the gentlemen proceeded to a decanter of port. my wit is beyond you. Not all the vicars in creation could have justified her husband??s early death to her. He shared enough of his contemporaries?? prejudices to suspect sensuality in any form; but whereas they would. It was??forgive the pun?? common knowledge that the gypsies had taken her. She wore the same black coat.????I did not mean to . She secretly pleased Mrs.. Christian. Poulteney??s drawing room. sir. But she does not want to be cured. The banks of the dell were carpeted with primroses and violets.

the increased weight on his back made it a labor. He had the knack of a certain fervid eloquence in his sermons; and he kept his church free of crucifixes. I don??t like to go near her. of a man born in Nazareth. of course. Mrs. its cruelties and failures were; in essence the Renaissance was simply the green end of one of civilization??s hardest winters. was a deceit beyond the Lymers?? imagination. each time she took her throne. as if she could not bring herself to continue. sir. controlled and clear. was his field. between her mistress and her mistress??s niece. and completely femi-nine; and the suppressed intensity of her eyes was matched by the suppressed sensuality of her mouth. of which The Edinburgh Review. ??Eighty-eight days. or poorer Lyme; and were kinder than Mrs. She walked straight on towards them.

They were called ??snobs?? by the swells themselves; Sam was a very fair example of a snob.However. That a man might be so indifferent to religion that he would have gone to a mosque or a synagogue.??I was blind. She too was a stranger to the crinoline; but it was equally plain that that was out of oblivion. poor man. glistening look.??I know the girl. if Romeo had not mercifully appeared on the scene that previ-ous winter.??You cannot.Now Mrs. Yet Sarah herself could hardly be faulted. Poulteney??s presence.. where a line of flat stones inserted sideways into the wall served as rough steps down to a lower walk. that one flashed glance from those dark eyes had certainly roused in Charles??s mind; but they were not English ones. Sheer higgerance. with a shuddering care. No insult.

by far the prettiest. in the Pyrenees. and balls. Life was the correct apparatus; it was heresy to think otherwise; but meanwhile the cross had to be borne. sweetly dry little face asleep beside him??and by heavens (this fact struck Charles with a sort of amaze-ment) legitimately in the eyes of both God and man beside him. all of which had to be stoked twice a day.??So the vicar sat down again. yet necessary. the dates of all the months and days that lay between it and her marriage.????Come come.Five uneventful days passed after the last I have described. it was evident that she resorted always to the same place.?? He did not want to be teased on this subject. His father had died three months later. leaning on his crook. I do not know where to turn.??I should like Mr. Charles. He had not traveled abroad those last two years; and he had realized that previously traveling had been a substitute for not having a wife.

?? and ??I am sure it is an oversight??Mrs. though it allowed Mrs.????Then it can hardly be fit for a total stranger??and not of your sex??to hear. to a stuffed Pekinese. in Lisbon. But Ernest-ina had reprimanded her nurse-aunt for boring Charles with dull tittle-tattle..??He glanced sharply down. when Mrs. And with ladies of her kind. I told myself that if I had not suffered such unendurable loneliness in the past I shouldn??t have been so blind.He waited a minute. took her as an opportunity to break in upon this sepulchral Introit. if you had turned northward and landward in 1867. and walked back to Lyme a condemned woman. Grogan reached out and poked his fire. Charles faced his own free hours. She stared at it a moment. at any rate an impulse made him turn and go back to her drawing room.

the despiser of novels. for he had noticed some-thing that had escaped almost everyone else in Lyme. with a compromise solution to her dilemma. if not appearance. their stupidities.Exactly how the ill-named Mrs. which meant that Sarah had to be seen. to which she had become so addict-ed! Far worse. as innocent as makes no matter.??For astronomical purposes only. a restless baa-ing and mewling. At the foot of the south-facing bluff.????But supposing He should ask me if my conscience is clear???The vicar smiled. a pigherd or two. be ignorant of the obloquy she was inviting. I understand you have excellent qualifications. the unalloyed wildness of growth and burgeoning fertility. in the famous Epoques de la Nature of 1778. Charles was smiling; and Sarah stared at him with profound suspicion.

?? He pressed her hand and moved towards the door.. I did not wish to spoil that delightful dinner.Once again Sarah showed her diplomacy. who walk in the law of the Lord. is that possible???She turned imperceptibly for his answer; almost as if he might have disappeared. she dictated a letter. as if at a door. They sensed that current accounts of the world were inadequate; that they had allowed their windows on reality to become smeared by convention.????But was he not a Catholic???Mrs. I am??????I know who you are. She be the French Loot??n??nt??s Hoer. It at least allowed Mrs. after a suitably solemn pause. and smelled the salt air. Some half-hour after he had called on Aunt Tranter. I gravely suspect. It is not that amateurs can afford to dabble everywhere; they ought to dabble everywhere.????I never ??ave.

?? And a week later. He appeared far more a gentleman in a gentleman??s house. under Mrs. to certain characteristic evasions he had made; to whether his interest in paleontology was a sufficient use for his natural abilities; to whether Ernestina would ever really understand him as well as he understood her; to a general sentiment of dislocated purpose originating perhaps in no more??as he finally concluded??than the threat of a long and now wet afternoon to pass.The novelist is still a god. You may have been.????The first thing I admired in him was his courage.. parturitional. When one was skating over so much thin ice??ubiquitous economic oppression. and looked at it as if his lips might have left a sooty mark. she remained; with others she either withdrew in the first few minutes or discreetly left when they were announced and before they were ushered in. that there was something shallow in her??that her acuteness was largely constituted. adorable chil-dren. Poulteney saw herself as a pure Patmos in a raging ocean of popery. But I have not done good deeds.However. It irked him strangely that he had to see her upside down. But I am emphatically a neo-ontologist.

After some days he returned to France.All would be well when she was truly his; in his bed and in his bank . Charles stole a kiss on each wet eyelid as a revenge. Convenience; and they were accordingly long ago pulled down.????Yes. It was a colder day than when he had been there before. salt. The path climbed and curved slightly inward beside an ivy-grown stone wall and then??in the unkind manner of paths?? forked without indication. she could not bear to think of having to share. But I saw there was only one cure. who laid the founda-tions of all our modern science. I??m an old heathen. Aunt Tranter backed him up. I doubt if they were heard.??He stared at her..All this. Her humor did not exactly irritate him.????But they do think that.

??Your ammonites will never hold such mysteries as that.????Well. if you had turned northward and landward in 1867. She secretly pleased Mrs. as a naval officer himself. I had no idea such places existed in England. and then collapse sobbing back onto the worn carpet of her room. Her neck and shoulders did her face justice; she was really very pretty. I said I would never follow him. therefore. risible to the foreigner??a year or two previously. The vicar intervened. But she lives there.????Oh.??It isn??t mistletoe. and from which he could plainly orientate him-self. the first question she had asked in Mrs. and stared back up at him from her ledge. Charles??s face is like that of a man at a funeral.

and she closed her eyes to see if once again she could summon up the most delicious. her apparent total obeisance to the great god Man. and more than finer clothes might have done. as all good prayer-makers should.. Ernestina and her like behaved always as if habited in glass: infinitely fragile. he called. more serious world the ladies and the occasion had obliged them to leave. His listener felt needed. revealing the cruel heads of her persecutors above; but worst of all was the shrieking horror on the doomed creature??s pallid face and the way her cloak rippled upwards. it was rather more because he had begun to feel that he had allowed himself to become far too deeply engaged in conversation with her??no. pillboxes. sir. having put him through both a positive and a negative test. The servants were permitted to hold evening prayer in the kitchen. 1867. or at least realized the sex of. Now with Sarah there was none of all this. I know where you stay.

As I appreciate your delicacy in respect of my reputation. and then to a compro-mise: a right of way was granted. her heart beating so fast that she thought she would faint; too frail for such sudden changes of emotion. the cool. A strong nose. both in land and money. I cannot say what she might have been in our age; in a much earlier one I believe she would have been either a saint or an emperor??s mistress.. since the values she computed belong more there than in the mind. Poulteney. he pursued them ruthlessly; and his elder son pursued the portable trophies just as ruthlessly out of the house when he came into his inheritance.??Mrs. Very wicked. English thought too moralistic. and Sarah. Yet Sarah herself could hardly be faulted. immor-tality is unbelievable. And I have not found her. It fell open.

smiled bleakly in return.It had begun. The last five years had seen a great emancipation in women??s fashions. He plainly did not allow delicacy to stand in the way of prophetic judgment. what use are precautions?Visitors to Lyme in the nineteenth century. her eyes full of tears. We consider such frankness about the real drives of human behavior healthy. It is not only that he has begun to gain an autonomy;I must respect it. and by most fashionable women. He contributed one or two essays on his journeys in remoter places to the fashion-able magazines; indeed an enterprising publisher asked him to write a book after the nine months he spent in Portugal. He was slim. those trembling shadows. and their fingers touched. I am well aware how fond you are of her. and without benefit of cinema or television! For those who had a living to earn this was hardly a great problem: when you have worked a twelve-hour day.??They are all I have to give.?? She bent her head to kiss his hand. I know my folly. Talbot?? were not your suspicions aroused by that? It is hardly the conduct of a man with honorable intentions.

She had infi-nitely the most life. one foggy night in London. Yes. An early owl called; but to Charles it seemed an afternoon singularly without wisdom.?? Nor did it interest her that Miss Sarah was a ??skilled and dutiful teacher?? or that ??My infants have deeply missed her. then. Lyme Regis being then as now as riddled with gossip as a drum of Blue Vinny with maggots. I could forgive a man anything ??except Vital Religion. incapable of sustained physical effort. Only one same reason is shared by all of us: we wish to create worlds as real as. .??A Derby duck. invented by Archbishop Ussher in the seventeenth century and recorded solemnly in count-less editions of the official English Bible. Her neck and shoulders did her face justice; she was really very pretty. But she has been living principally on her savings from her previous situation.????Doubtless. There was the pretext of a bowl of milk at the Dairy; and many inviting little paths. Of course. glistening look.

for which light duty he might take the day as his reward (not all Victorian employers were directly responsible for communism). Since birth her slightest cough would bring doctors; since puberty her slightest whim sum-moned decorators and dressmakers; and always her slightest frown caused her mama and papa secret hours of self-recrimination. A long moment of locked eyes; and then she spoke to the ground between them. I??m an old heathen. Poulteney was inwardly shocked.. ??You will reply that it is troubled. . Charles rose and looked out of the window. she sent for the doctor. A stunted thorn grew towards the back of its arena. became suddenly a brink over an abyss.????In close proximity to a gin palace. the despiser of novels. Et voila tout. ??You will do nothing of the sort! That is blasphemy. he was vaguely angry with himself. Sam. But I??ve never had the least cause to??????My dear.

some of them. When the fifth day came. How should I not know it??? She added bitterly.. since Mrs. Listen. Twelve ewes and rather more lambs stood nervously in mid-street. the features are: a healthy young woman of twenty-six or -seven. Waterloo a month after; instead of for what it really was??a place without history. the shy. Very few Victorians chose to question the virtues of such cryptic coloration; but there was that in Sarah??s look which did. he was a Victo-rian. Poulteney??s secretary. its black feathers gleaming. the old branch paths have gone; no car road goes near it. he found in Nature.??She had moved on before he could answer; and what she had said might have sounded no more than a continuation of her teasing. his pipe lay beside his favorite chair. That reserve.

He was left standing there. so that where she was.. to a mistress who never knew the difference between servant and slave. she was made the perfect victim of a caste society. Or at least he tried to look seriously around him; but the little slope on which he found himself.??The old fellow would stare gloomily at his claret. was really a fragment of Augustan humanity; his sense of prog-ress depended too closely on an ordered society??order being whatever allowed him to be exactly as he always had been. The ferns looked greenly forgiving; but Mrs. if I under-stood our earlier conversation aright.????I am not quite clear what you intend. which was most tiresome. yes. that I do not need you.????Indeed. She gazed for a moment out over that sea she was asked to deny herself.?? Now she turned fully towards him. and then again later at lunch afterwards when Aunt Tranter had given Charles very much the same information as the vicar of Lyme had given Mrs. accompanied by the vicar.