She crept back to her bed, cold and despondent. The passing passion she had felt for Morton was but a passing sensation of the summer night, as transient as the snatches of perfume which the night wind carried into the room. Again she cared for nothing in the world. She did not know what was going to become of her; the burden of life seemed so unbearable; she felt so unhappy. She lay quite still, with her eyes wide open, seeing the questions go round like the hands of a clock; the very words sounded as loud and distinct in her brain as the ticking of a clock. Her nerves were shattered, and life grew terribly distinct in the insomnia of the hot summer night. … She threw herself over and over in her burning bed until at last her soul cried out of its lucid misery: 'Give me a passion for God or man, but give me a passion. I cannot live without one.'
JOHN NORTON
I.
Mrs. Norton walked with her quiet, decisive step to the window, and holding the gold-rimmed glasses to her eyes, she looked into the landscape. The day was grimy with clouds; mist had risen, and it hung out of the branches of the elms like a grey veil. She was a woman of forty-five, tall, strongly-built, her figure setting to the squareness of middle age. Her complexion was flushed, and her cold grey eyes were close together above a long thin nose. Her fashionably-cut silk fitted perfectly; the skirt was draped with grace and precision of style, and the glossy shawl with the long soft fringe fell gracefully over her shoulders. 'Surely,' she thought, 'he cannot have been foolish enough to have walked over the downs such a day as this;' then, raising her glasses again, she looked out at the smallest angle with the wall of the house, so that she should get sight of a vista through which any one coming from Shoreham would have to pass. At that moment a silhouette appeared on the sullen sky. Mrs. Norton moved precipitately from the window, and rang the bell.
'James,' she said, 'Mr. Hare has been going in for one of his long walks. He is coming across the park. I am sure he has walked over the downs; if so, he must be wet through. Have a fire lighted, and put out a pair of slippers for him: Here is the key of Mr. Norton's wardrobe; let Mr. Hare have what he wants.'
And having detached a key from one of the many bunches which filled her basket, Mrs. Norton went herself to open the door to her visitor. He was, however, still some distance away, and it was not until he climbed the iron fence which separated the park from the garden grounds that the figure grew into its individuality, into a man of about fifty, about the medium height, inclined to stoutness. His white neck-tie proclaimed him a parson, and the grey mud with which his boots were bespattered told of his long walk.
'You are quite right, Lizzie, you are quite right,' he said; 'I shouldn't have done it. Had I known what a state the roads were in, I wouldn't have attempted it.'
'If you don't know what these roads are like in winter by this time, you never will.'
'I never saw them in the state they are now; such a slush of chalk and clay was never seen.' 'What can you expect after a month of heavy rain? You are wringing wet.'
'Yes, I was caught in a heavy shower as I was crossing over by Fresh- Combe-bottom. I am certainly not in a fit state to come into your dining-room.'