Divested themselves,
Framing rude necessary heights.
Yet you sit plaintive there while I aspire,
Intent upon a goal you will not see.
Must I descend to you?
Or shall I venture still?—My staff
An accusation of inconstancy.
What did it mean? Why was it marked? Who had written it? Why was it lying on Keble’s desk? She stood cold and still, her gaze returning again and again to the paper in her hand.
Unable to answer the questions, she sat down and made an ink copy of the brutal lines. When the last word was written she replaced the original on the table and took the copy to her bedroom, reading it, unconsciously memorizing it, making room in her philosophy for its egoistic claim, and finally locking it in the box that sheltered her youthful manuscripts.
Although she did not refer to the enigmatic poem, she knew that to its discovery could be traced a breach that began to make itself felt, a breach which she knew Keble associated in some vague way with the funeral of little Billy Salter. Keble, for his part, had made no mention of the poem, and day after day those accusatory blue marks continued to peer through the unanswered correspondence that rested on his table. Although she argued the lines out of countenance, though she watched for Keble’s polite mask to fall and reveal some emotion that would disprove her interpretation of them, they ate into her heart.