It seemed that she
had made a clean break, and that nothing of what had made her dawning life
sweet and sane was to mingle with the sweetness and sanity which she had
brought into Wanless. And then--after eight years--she caught herself
looking back. And now--here was an end of the dream.
If you are to ask me what had changed her regard for Ingram during that
solitary year, so that she received him at the end of it as she did, I
don't know that I can tell you. Slowly discovery--of herself, of him--came
to her, slowly combustible stuff was heaped within her; it slowly kindled,
and smouldered long. No doubt he himself blew it into clear flame by his
let-drop news of Claire's death. She had not known that: she never read
the newspaper, having neither time for the world's affairs nor interest in
them. Suddenly, by that, she was offended; suddenly saw him as he really
was, always had been, and always must be. Suddenly, also, she saw herself,
as brimming with life, energy to live and to make live, at the end of her
music-time. The folds fell from her eyes, she could see Ingram as a man,
squalid. Nay, more: she could now see him as a beast, ravening. Thereupon
he gave her horror, so that she dared not look back upon her hours of
blindness.
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