She rose and began undressing. Before she lay down she went
to open the window. With her hand on the sill, she hesitated,
feeling suddenly as though some danger were lurking outside, some
inordinate desire waiting to spring upon her in the darkness. She
stood there for a long time, gazing at the infinite sweep of the
sky.

"Oh, it is all so little, so little there," she murmured.
"When everything else is so dwarfed, why should one expect love to
be great? Why should one try to read highly coloured suggestions
into a life like that? If only I could find one thing in it all
that mattered greatly, one thing that would warm me when I am
alone! Will life never give me that one great moment?"

As she raised the window, she heard a sound in the plum bushes
outside. It was only the house-dog roused from his sleep, but
Margaret started violently and trembled so that she caught the foot
of the bed for support. Again she felt herself pursued by some
overwhelming longing, some desperate necessity for herself, like
the outstretching of helpless, unseen arms in the darkness, and the
air seemed heavy with sighs of yearning. She fled to her bed with
the words, "I love you more than Christ who died for me!" ringing
in her ears.


III

About midnight the dance at Lockhart's was at its height.
Even the old men who had come to "look on" caught the spirit of