That was her knapsack lying on the seat there. She picked it up and slung it over her shoulder.
Cirencester? Or back to Stow-on-the-Wold? If only he hadn't come there last night. If only he had let her alone.
She meditated. She would have to wire to Gwinnie Denning to meet her at Cirencester. She wondered whether Gwinnie's mother's lumbago would last over the week-end. It was Friday. Perhaps Gwinnie had started. Perhaps there would be a wire from her at the hotel.
Going on to Cirencester when you wanted to be in Stow-on-the-Wold, what was it but a cowardly retreat? Driven out of Stow-on-the-Wold by Gibson? Not she!
Dusk at ten o'clock in the morning under the trees on the mile-long hill. You climbed up and up a steep green tunnel. The sun would be blazing at its mouth on the top. Nothing would matter. Certainly not this affair with Gibson Herbert. She could see clearly her immense, unique passion thus diminished. Surprising what a lot of it you could forget. Clean forget. She supposed you forgot because you couldn't bear to remember.
But there were days that stood out; hours; little minutes that thrilled you even now and stung.
This time, two years ago, that hot August. The day in the office when everything went wrong all at once and the clicking of her typewriter maddened him and he sent her out of his room.
The day when he kept her over-time. The others had gone and they were there by themselves, the big man in his big room and she in her den, the door open between. Suddenly she saw him standing in the doorway, looking at her. She knew then. She could feel the blood rushing in her brain; the stabbing click of the typewriter set up little whirling currents that swamped her thoughts.
Her wet fingers kept slipping from the keys. He came and took her in his arms. She lay back in his arms, crying. Crying because she was happy, because she knew.
She remembered now what he had said then. "You must have known. You must have thought of me. You must have wanted me to take you in my arms." And her answer. "No. I didn't. I didn't think of it."