All at once she turned, speaking rapidly, incoherently. “Don’t—don’t talk to me like that! Don’t argue with me! I can’t bear it—now! I’m all at sea; I’m a ship without a captain. Don’t bend me; I was never made to be bent. I have got to think for myself. You must go away—indeed, you must! Somehow, to talk about it makes it so much worse. I can’t discuss it! Don’t ask me any more! Oh, I know you think I’m unreasonable. It sounds unreasonable sometimes, even to myself. I wish you wouldn’t blame me, but I know you must. You can’t help it. I blame myself, and I hurt myself, and the blame and the want and the hurt are all mixed up together! If you care—if you care anything for me, you will go away! You won’t come again. I hurt you when you do, and I can’t bear to do it.”
Daunt nodded, took her hand, held it a moment, and then released it. “Very well,” he said quietly and sadly. He did not offer to kiss her. The fire had died out of his voice and there was left only a constrained sorrow. But it had no note of despair. Its resignation was just as wilful as had been its assertive passion. He looked at her a moment lingeringly, then turned and vaulting the hedge, with squared shoulders and swinging stride, struck off across the stubble of the fields.
Margaret did not look back, but she knew he had not turned his head. Then a long sigh escaped her.
XI.
Her blood coursed drummingly as she went back along the road, half running, her hat fallen, held by the loose ribbon under her chin, her hands opening and closing nervously. Her head was high and her mood struck through her like the smell of turned earth to a wild thing of the jungle. She wanted action, hard movement, and she ran with fingers spread to feel the breeze. Her thoughts were a tumult—her feelings one massing, striving storm of voices, through which ran constant, vibrating, a single, insistent, dominant chord.
“You shall! You SHALL!” she repeated under her breath. “Why do I like that? It’s sweeter than bells! I can hear him say it yet. It was like a hand, pulling me!”
She stopped stock-still, suddenly, gazing at the fallen purple-and-crimson autumn leaves, a poured-out glory of color at her feet. “Splendid!” she said. She bent and swept up a great armful and tossed the clean, wispy, crackling things in the air. They fell in a whirling shower over her face, catching in her hair. In the midst of them she laughed aloud, every chord of her body sounding. Then, with a quick revulsion, she threw out her arms and sank panting on the selvage of the field.
“What can I do? What can I do?” she said. “I’m afraid! I can’t go on fighting this way! It—drags me so.” Her fingers were pulling up the tapery grass-spears in a sinister terror. “I felt so strong the last few weeks, and it’s gone—utterly gone! Why—it went when I first looked at his face. If he had kissed me again, this time; if—if he had held me as he did that other day—in the woods—oh, my heart’s water! There’s something in me that won’t fight. The ground goes from under my feet. It’s dreadful to feel this way! His hair smelled like—roses! If I had dared kiss it! I ought to be sorry and I’m—not! I’m ashamed to be glad, and I’m glad to be ashamed!”