I felt her standing behind me as I spoke to the cab man.

I got into the cab, resolutely not looking back, and then as it started
jumped up, craned out and looked at the door.

It was wide open, but she had disappeared....

I wonder--I suppose she ran upstairs.

X

So I parted from Marion at an extremity of perturbation and regret, and
went, as I had promised and arranged, to Effie, who was waiting for me
in apartments near Orpington. I remember her upon the station platform,
a bright, flitting figure looking along the train for me, and our walk
over the fields in the twilight. I had expected an immense sense of
relief where at last the stresses of separation were over, but now
I found I was beyond measure wretched and perplexed, full of the
profoundest persuasion of irreparable error. The dusk and somber Marion
were so alike, her sorrow seemed to be all about me. I had to hold
myself to my own plans, to remember that I must keep faith with Effie,
with Effie who had made no terms, exacted no guarantees, but flung
herself into my hands.

We went across the evening fields in silence, towards a sky of deepening
gold and purple, and Effie was close beside me always, very close,
glancing up ever and again at my face.

Certainly she knew I grieved for Marion, that ours was now no joyful