Lucy turned away, and the wind got under her umbrella and turned it inside out, and made a diversion.
'There is no other way?' she said, when Eric had brought it back into something like shape, and returned it to her.
'No,' he said, 'there is no other way.'
Lucy put down her umbrella—she would battle no more with the storm—and the rain came down in a sheet and wetted her through and through as she walked slowly back to the college.
There was a crowd of girls round the table in the hall when she came in. The postman had just been, and the letters were lying on the hall table, and the girls were crowding round. Among the girls standing by the table was Pamela Gwatkin. She looked up when Lucy came in wet and draggled, and a dull red flush crept up under her skin, and her lips tightened.
'Wherever has she been such a morning as this?' said one of the girls aloud as Lucy passed them.
She didn't pause at the table and look for her letters like the rest. She didn't expect letters by every post like other girls; the coming of the postman never stirred her pulse the least. She had no one to write to her.
Pamela didn't vouchsafe Lucy another look, but went back to her room with her head lifted high, and her letters—she had quite a sheaf of them, letters and papers—clutched to her bosom. She didn't attempt to open them when she got back to her room. She went straight to the window and looked out at the blinding rain.
'She has been to meet him again,' she murmured; 'and such a morning as this! She must be very far gone. Oh, it is outrageous! It is quite indecent!'
Another girl who had seen her come in followed Lucy back to her room, and just as she had reached it Lucy shut the door in her face.