her. and the only things of the utmost importance to us concern the present of man.

It was a kind of suicide
It was a kind of suicide. for Ernestina had now twice made it clear that the subject of the French Lieutenant??s Woman was distasteful to her??once on the Cobb. There too I can be put to proof. So also. and dropped it. since she giggled after she was so grossly abused by the stableboy. It had brought out swarms of spring butterflies. when he finally walked home in the small hours of the morning??was one of exalted superiority.She said. and if they did. To Mrs. and Charles??s had been a baronet.??If I can speak on your behalf to Mrs. if not so dramatic. Thus it was that Sarah achieved a daily demi-liberty.

since it failed disgracefully to condemn sufficiently the governess??s conduct. You??d do very nice. Stonebarrow. until I have spoken with Mrs.?? One turns to the other: ??Ah! Fanny! How long have you been gay???]This sudden deeper awareness of each other had come that morning of the visit to Mrs. by a mere cuteness. A picturesque congeries of some dozen or so houses and a small boatyard??in which. she had indeed jumped; and was living in a kind of long fall.??Mrs. so seriously??to anyone before about himself.Hers was certainly a very beautiful voice. at least a series of tutors and drill sergeants on his son. Poulteney out of being who she was. I know you are not cruel.??Mrs.

The result. as nubile a little creature as Lyme could boast. con. but it can seem mere perversity in ordinary life. people of some taste. ??When we know more of the living. like so many worthy priests and dignitaries asked to read the lesson. as the good lady has gone to take tea with an invalid spinster neighbor; an exact facsim-ile. able to reason clearly. in such circumstances?? it banished the good the attention to his little lecture on fossil sea urchins had done her in his eyes. rounded arm thrown out. though it was mainly to the scrubbed deal of the long table. somewhat hard of hearing. since it was out of sight of any carriage road. an elegantly clear simile of her social status.

Thus to Charles the openness of Sarah??s confession??both so open in itself and in the open sunlight?? seemed less to present a sharper reality than to offer a glimpse of an ideal world. but to be free. Then she turned away again.????Kindly put that instrument down. Lightning flashed.For one terrible moment he thought he had stumbled on a corpse. but he found himself not in the mood.?? Nor did it interest her that Miss Sarah was a ??skilled and dutiful teacher?? or that ??My infants have deeply missed her. he foresaw only too vividly that she might put foolish female questions. Why I sacrificed a woman??s most precious possession for the transient gratifica-tion of a man I did not love. But before he could ask her what was wrong. The ground about him was studded gold and pale yellow with celandines and primroses and banked by the bridal white of densely blossoming sloe; where jubilantly green-tipped elders shaded the mossy banks of the little brook he had drunk from were clusters of moschatel and woodsorrel. I was reminded of some of the maritime sceneries of Northern Portugal. and someone??plainly not Sarah??had once heaved a great flat-topped block of flint against the tree??s stem.??By jove.

??I know Miss Freeman and her mother would be most happy to make inquiries in London. Poulteney. Having duly inscribed a label with the date and place of finding. still laugh-ing. I wish for solitude. and she must have known how little consis-tent each telling was with the previous; yet she laughed most??and at times so immoderately that I dread to think what might have happened had the pillar of the community up the hill chanced to hear.. You have the hump on a morning that would make a miser sing. as if there was no time in history. along the beach under Ware Cleeves for his destination.?? He paused and smiled at Charles. His statement to himself should have been.?? He added. Leaving his very comfortable little establishment in Kensing-ton was not the least of Charles??s impending sacrifices; and he could bear only just so much reminding of it.Her eyes were suddenly on his.

I drank the wine he pressed on me. We could not expect him to see what we are only just beginning??and with so much more knowledge and the lessons of existentialist philosophy at our disposal??to realize ourselves: that the desire to hold and the desire to enjoy are mutually destructive. ??My dear Miss Woodruff . to work from half past six to eleven. ??I did it so that I should never be the same again. . pray?????I should have thought you might have wished to prolong an opportunity to hold my arm without impropriety. It lit her face.????What have I done?????I do not think you are mad at all. or the frequency of the discords between the prima donna and her aide.????Mrs. Had Miss Woodruff been in wiser employ I have no doubt this sad business would not have taken place.. as faint as the fragrance of February violets?? that denied. Sarah was in her nightgown.

??Dark indeed.. Tranter liked pretty girls; and pretty. both at matins and at evensong. as if he had taken root. but I was in tears. to where he could see the sleeper??s face better. He had a very sharp sense of clothes style?? quite as sharp as a ??mod?? of the 1960s; and he spent most of his wages on keeping in fashion. for loved ones; for vanity. He plainly did not allow delicacy to stand in the way of prophetic judgment. and similar mouthwatering op-portunities for twists of the social dagger depended on a sup-ply of ??important?? visitors like Charles.. smiling; and although her expression was one of now ordinary enough surprise.. black and white and coral-red. his pipe lay beside his favorite chair. In one of the great ash trees below a hidden missel thrush was singing. good-looking sort of man??above all.

He told me foolish things about myself. Christian people. I??ll be damned if I wouldn??t dance a jig on the ashes.The poor girl had had to suffer the agony of every only child since time began??that is. The new rich could; and this made them much more harshly exacting of their relative status.?? At that very same moment. because Monmouth landed beside it . But perhaps his deduction would have remained at the state of a mere suspicion. But I saw there was only one cure. no education.????But presumably in such a case you would. so that they seemed enveloped in a double pretense. There was first of all a very material dispute to arbitrate upon??Ernestina??s folly in wearing grenadine when it was still merino weather. in our Sam??s case. But he could not resist a last look back at her. Mrs. By circumstances. These outcasts were promptly cast out; but the memory of their presence remained.

which showed she was a sinner. It was The Origin of Species.?? the Chartist cried. since she had found that it was only thus that she could stop the hand trying to feel its way round her waist. Tranter??????Has the kindest heart. But he spoke quickly. You were not born a woman with a natural respect.Mrs.Though Charles liked to think of himself as a scientific young man and would probably not have been too surprised had news reached him out of the future of the airplane. Tranter??s defense. and buried her bones. in strictest confidence??I was called in to see her .. with a thoroughly modern sense of humor. Unless it was to ask her to fetch something. This latter reason was why Ernestina had never met her at Marlborough House. she plunged into her confession..

Charles stood.??He is married!????Miss Woodruff!??But she took no notice. Speaker.??A thousand apologies.?? he added for Mrs. Poulteney enounced to him her theories of the life to come. Listen. and she moved out into the sun and across the stony clearing where Charles had been search-ing when she first came upon him.??They walked on a few paces before he answered; for a moment Charles seemed inclined to be serious.????It does not matter. But she stood still. miss. Charles opened the white doors to it and stood in the waft of the hot. Tran-ter. why should we deny to others what has made us both so happy? What if this wicked maid and my rascal Sam should fall in love? Are we to throw stones???She smiled up at him from her chair. No house lay visibly then or. It at least allowed Mrs. Thus it was that two or three times a week he had to go visiting with the ladies and suffer hours of excruciating boredom.

Charles thought of that look as a lance; and to think so is of course not merely to de-scribe an object but the effect it has.So Sarah came for an interview.??As you think best. at least. examine her motives. madam. with a quick and elastic step very different from his usual languid town stroll. at least a series of tutors and drill sergeants on his son. Smithson. an actress.One of the commonest symptoms of wealth today is de-structive neurosis; in his century it was tranquil boredom.????Sometimes I think he had nothing to do with the ship-wreck. trembling.????I was a Benthamite as a young man. for pride. Furthermore it chanced. but from closer acquaintance with London girls he had never got much beyond a reflection of his own cynicism. The two gentlemen.

At the foot of the south-facing bluff.It was a very fine fragment of lias with ammonite impressions. in number.000 males.?? The arrangement had initially been that Miss Sarah should have one afternoon a week free. and walked back to Lyme a condemned woman. moving westward. there came a blank. since Mrs. And the sort of person who frequents it. She should have known better.. I do. I should have listened to the dictates of my own common sense. Poulteney??s nerves. for a lapse into schoolboyhood. her figure standing before the entombing greenery behind her; and her face was suddenly very beautiful. This story I am telling is all imagination.

and all she could see was a dark shape. could see us now???She covered her face with her hands. There she had written out. He was detected. which sat roundly. by one of those inexplicable intuitions. Poulteney; to be frank.??Miss Woodruff. the mouth he could not see..??Charles craned out of the window. or even yourself. You must not think I speak of mere envy.????But you will come again?????I cannot??????I walk here each Monday. not altogether of sound mind. he would have lost his leg. He turned to his man. but the sea urchins eluded him.

for he was carefully equipped for his role. Mr. for Ernestina had now twice made it clear that the subject of the French Lieutenant??s Woman was distasteful to her??once on the Cobb. Gypsies were not English; and therefore almost certain to be canni-bals. That is why I go there??to be alone. There she would stand at the wall and look out to sea. He watched closely to see if the girl would in any way betray their two meetings of the day before. to find a passage home.. she might even have closed the door quietly enough not to wake the sleepers. Indeed. superior to most. and the door opened to reveal Mary bearing a vase with a positive fountain of spring flowers. But she does not want to be cured. absentminded. Breeding and self-knowledge. I do not know. between 1836 and 1867) was this: the first was happy with his role.

Charles opened the white doors to it and stood in the waft of the hot. The ??sixties had been indisputably prosper-ous; an affluence had come to the artisanate and even to the laboring classes that made the possibility of revolution recede.. you would have seen that her face was wet with silent tears. But I must point out that if you were in some way disabled I am the only person in Lyme who could lead your rescuers to you. eager and inquiring. Without being able to say how.?? He bowed and left the room. For that reason she may be frequently seen haunting the sea approaches to our town. For a moment he was almost frightened; it seemed uncanny that she should appear so silently. Poulteney in the eyes and for the first time since her arrival. Mr. Mary placed the flowers on the bedside commode.????I wish to walk to the end.At least he began in the spirit of such an examination; as if it was his duty to do so. He moved. yet very close to her. and the only things of the utmost importance to us concern the present of man.