leaving him, the superstitious idea that just _because_ she was not
there something would happen. Suppose she didn't go; but sat in the
kitchen for two hours and then went to bed. Would she ever forgive
herself for letting slip the chance of happiness that had come direct
from the clouds'? Never! But if she went, and something _did_ happen,
would she ever in that event know self-content again in all the days of
her life? Roughly she shouldered away her conscience, those throbbing
urgencies that told her to stay. She was to give up everything for a
fear? She was to let Keith go for ever? Jenny wrung her hands, drawing
sobbing breaths in her distress.

Something made her pick the letter swiftly up and read it through a
second time. So wild was the desire to go that she began to whimper,
kissing the letter again and again, holding it softly to her cold
cheek. Keith! What did it matter? What did anything matter but her love?
Was she never to know any happiness? Where, then, was her reward? A
heavenly crown of martyrdom? What was the good of that? Who was the
better for it? Passionately Jenny sobbed at such a mockery of her
overwhelming impulse. "They" hadn't such a problem to solve. "They"
didn't know what it was to have your whole nature craving for the thing
denied. "They" were cowards, enemies to freedom because they liked the
music of their manacles! They could not understand what it was to love
so that one adored the beloved. Not blood, but water ran in their veins!
They didn't know. ... They couldn't feel. Jenny knew, Jenny felt; Jenny
was racked with the sweet passion that blinds the eyes to consequences.
She _must_ go! Wickedness might be her nature: what then? It was a sweet
wickedness. It was her choice!

Jenny's glance fell upon the trimmed hat which lay upon the table.
Nothing but a cry from her father could have prevented her from taking