And now she was walking along the field-path that slanted from the orchard door to the stile; further and further back, to where young George Waring waited for her under the elder tree. The smell of the elder flowers came to her over the field. She could feel on her lips and in all her body the sweet, innocent excitement of her youth.
“George, oh, George!”
As she went along the field-path she had seen him. But the man who stood waiting for her under the elder tree was Oscar Wade.
“I told you it’s no use getting away, Harriott. Every path brings you back to me. You’ll find me at every turn.”
“But how did you get here?”
“As I got into the pavilion. As I got into your father’s room, on to his death-bed. Because I was there. I am in all your memories.”
“My memories are innocent. How could you take my father’s place, and Stephen’s, and George Waring’s? You?”
“Because I did take them.”
“Never. My love for them was innocent.”
“Your love for me was part of it. You think the past affects the future. Has it never struck you that the future may affect the past? In your innocence there was the beginning of your sin. You were what you were to be.”