"Oh, no!"
She crossed and kissed her friend, then quietly went to her room. She undressed, switched off the light, and lay on her back staring. A terrible time was coming, the worst time of all. She knew what it would be—Remembering Things. Remembering everything, every tiny, tiny little thing. Oh, if that would only leave her alone for to-night, until to-morrow when she would endure it more easily. But now. They were coming, creeping towards her across the floor, in at the window, in at the door, from under the bed.
"I don't want to remember! I don't want to remember!" she cried.
Then they came, in a long endless procession, crowding eagerly with mocking laughter one upon another! That first day of all when she had quarrelled with Victoria and she had come downstairs to find him waiting for her, when they had sat upon her boxes, his arm round her. When they had walked across the Park and he had given her tea. After their first quarrel which had been about nothing at all, and he had sent her flowers, when he had caught her eye across the luncheon-table at Victoria's and they had laughed at their own joke, their secret joke, and Clarice had seen them and been so angry. . . . Yes, and moments caught under flashing sunlight, gathering dusk—moments at Cladgate, dancing in the hotel with the rain crackling on the glass above them, sudden movements of generosity and kindliness when his face had been serious, grave, involved consciously in some holy quest . . . agonizing moments of waiting for him, feeling sure that he would not come, then suddenly seeing him swing along, his eyes searching for her, lighting at the sight of her. . . . His hand seeking hers, finding it, hers soft against the cool strength of his . . . jokes, jokes, known only to themselves, nicknames that they gave, funny points of view they had, "men like trees walking," presents, a little jade box that he had given her, the silver frame for his photograph, a tennis racket. . . .
Oh, no, no, shut it out! I can't hear it any longer! If you come to me still I must go to him, find him, tell him I love him whatever it is that he has done, and that I will stay with him, be with him, hear his voice. . . .
She sat up, her hands to her head, the frenzy of another woman beating now in her brain. She did not know the hour nor the place; the world on every side of her was utterly still, you might hear the minutes like drops of water falling into the pool of silence. She saw it a vast inverted bowl gleaming white against the deep blue of the sky shredded with stars. On the edge of this bowl she was walking perilously, as on a rope over space.
She had slept—but now she was awake, clear-headed, seeing everything distinctly, and what she saw was that she must go to Bunny, must find him, must tell him that she would never leave him again.
She was now so clear about it because the peril she saw in front of her was her loneliness. To go on, living for ever and ever in a completely empty world, walking round and round on that ridge above that terrible shining silence—could that be expected of any one? No. Seriously she spoke aloud, shaking her head: "I can't be supposed to endure that."
She got out of bed and dressed very carefully, very cautiously, realizing quite clearly that she must not wake Mary Cass, who would certainly stop her from going to find Bunny. Time did not occur to her, only she saw that the moonlight was shining into her room throwing milky splashes upon the floor, and these she avoided as though they would contaminate her, walking carefully around them as she dressed. She went softly into the sitting-room, softly down the stairs, softly into the street. She was wearing her little crimson hat because that was one that he liked.