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‘Why—to see that you were quite alone; not a bit of the old life left to you.—Have you been contented;—living without me, like this?’

She steadied her thoughts and voice. ‘Well—hardly contented, Clive; except as mothers must learn to be; in your happiness.’

‘But how could I be happy if you weren’t!’ said Clive. He had turned his eyes away from her.

Strange paradox of the human heart, showing its frailty! A moment before she had felt the pang of joy in the thought of his happiness; but was it not now a deeper joy to know that he, too, had suffered? She could find no word to say to him; no word that might not flaw the beautiful, the precarious moment. She felt herself cherishing it, and the assurance it brought her, as though it were a gift of something warm, living and fragile that Clive had put into her hands. It was their life; their own shared life; known by nobody else; that she had thought dead. It lived; and he had given it back to her. She heard herself saying to herself, deep down under everything: ‘This is one of those moments when it would be good to die’: and then, suddenly, as they reached the summit of the hill and stood there, looking away in the sunlight, everything was shattered; for Clive was saying, with a breathlessness that, she now