Her knees trembled. She supposed he must be at the theatre this week. But, when she saw a playbill outside the music-seller's, she was afraid to examine it lest he might be staring after her. She walked on excitedly. She was filled with a tremulous elation, which she cared neither to define nor to acknowledge. She reflected that she had left the hospital a few minutes earlier than usual, and that otherwise she might have missed him. "Missed" was the word of her reflection. She wondered where he was staying—in which streets the professional lodgings were. She felt suddenly strange in the town not to know. She had been here three years, and she did not know—how odd! In turning a corner she saw another advertisement of the theatre, this time on a hoarding. The day was Monday, and the paper was still shiny with the bill-sticker's paste. She was screened from observation, and for a moment she paused, devouring the cast with a rapid glance. His wife's name didn't appear, so it wasn't their own company. She hurried on again. The sight of him had acted on her like a strong stimulant. Without knowing why, she was exhilarated. The air was sweeter, life was keener; she was athirst to reach the shore and, in her favourite spot, to yield herself up wholly to sensation.
And how little he had changed! He seemed scarcely to have changed at all. He looked just as he used to look, though he must have gone through much since the night they parted. Ah, how could she forget that parting—how allow the fires of it to wane? It was pitiful that, feeling things so intensely when they happened, one was unable to keep the intensity alive. The waste! The puerility of loving or hating, of mourning or rejoicing so violently in life, when the passage of time, the interposition of irrelevant incident, would smear the passion that was all-absorbing into an experience that one called to mind!
She sank on to a bench upon the slope of ragged grass that merged into the shingles and the sand. The sea, vague and unruffled, lay like a sheet of oil, veiled in mist except for one bright patch on the horizon where it quivered luminously. She bent her eyes upon the sea, and saw the past. His voice struck her soul before she heard his footstep. "Mary!" he said, and she knew that he had followed her.
She did not speak, she did not move. The blood surged to her temples, and left her body cold. She struggled for self-command; for the ability to conceal her agitation; for the power she yearned to gather of blighting him with the scorn she craved to feel.
"Won't you speak to me?" he said. He came round to her side, and stood there, looking down at her. "Won't you speak?" he repeated—"a word?"
"I have nothing to say to you," she murmured. "I hoped I should never see you any more."
He waited awkwardly, kicking the soil with the point of his boot, his gaze wandering from her over the ocean—from the ocean back to her.
"I have often thought about you," he said at last in a jerk. "Do you believe that?"
She kept silent, and then made as if to rise.
"Do you believe that I have thought about you?" he demanded quickly. "Answer me!"