It could not be true. Quentin could not have failed her like this. Leonard must be mistaken. If one were to see the sun setting in the east or the sea on fire one would doubt one's senses, one would not doubt the universal laws. Neither would she doubt Quentin—she rather would doubt Leonard's senses, doubt her own.
She had not in the whole course of her love doubted Quentin. It was he who had doubted her, who had tormented her with his distrusts and jealousies. "I'm only a misshapen little bounder, Janey—the first decent man who comes along will snatch you from me. But he will never love you as I do—Janey, Janey, little Janey" ... the words seemed to come from outside her, from the shadowy corners of the room. She sat up and listened. They came again—"Janey, my own little love, my little heart—our love wounds, but it is the wound of immortality, the wound which must always be when the Infinitely Great lifts up and gathers to itself the infinitely little." ... "Stand by me, stand by me—I have nothing but my sword. I threw away my shield long ago. If you do not stand by me I shall fall." ... "Janey, love, dear little love, with eyes like September."...
She crouched back in terror. Was she going mad? No, these were only words from Quentin's letters—the letters she had just read—ringing in her strung and distracted brain.
"Love, my little sweet love, do you think of me sometimes in the long evenings when I think of you?—sometimes when I am thinking of you, I tremble lest you should not be thinking of me...." "Do you know how often I dream of you, Janey? You come to me so often in sleep—once you stood between me and the window, and I saw the stars through your hair. Oh, God!—when I dream I hold you in my arms, and wake with them empty."...
She could stand it no longer. She sprang to her feet—the strength of desperation had come at last. There was one only who could tell her which she was to doubt—her own senses or, as it seemed to her, the cosmic laws of his love.
She would go over to Redpale Farm—she would see Quentin, she would have an explanation. There would be one—and she would take her stand boldly beside him, against his father, against the whole world—though she, like him, had thrown away her shield long ago.
CHAPTER III ONLY A BOY
It was about four o'clock, and in spite of what Leonard said, not much cooler than at noon. The sun scorched on the hay-grass, drawing out of it a drowsy perfume, which a faint, hot breeze scattered into the hedges. The trees scarcely moved, and their shadows were rusted with the curling sorrel. Clumps of dog-roses and elder flowers splashed the bushes with sudden pinks and whites, while vetches trailed their purples less startlingly in the hedgerows.