sounded like a faint tap of drums, there came the doubt of her
sincerity.

Had she really meant what she said? Yet she could have said nothing
else. The words had left her lips involuntarily, her voice, as though
of itself, had taken on that tender tone. She could not have failed in
that dramatic moment, but now she was half afraid of her undertaking.
Well, her hands dropped to her sides, she had given her word; she had
promised herself in an heroic surrender and her very doubts seemed to
sanctify the act.

For a long time she sat by the fire, half undressed, her immature thin
arms hanging loosely, her sombre eyes staring at the fire. She wished
this night might go on for ever, this time of ecstasy between a
promise and its fulfilment. She had seen disillusionment in another
and did not laugh at its possibility for herself; it would come to
her, she thought, as it had come to her mother, who had hoped her
daughter would find happiness in love; and Henrietta wondered if that
gentle spirit was aware of what was happening.

The thought troubled her a little, and from her mother, who had been a
neglected wife, it was no more than a step to that other, lying on her
back, tortured and lonely. If Christabel Sales had a daughter, what
would be her fierce young thoughts about this thief, sitting by the
fire in a joy which was half misery? Yet she was no thief: she was
only picking up what would otherwise be wasted. It seemed to her that
life was hardly more than a perpetual and painful choice. Some one had
to be hurt, and why should it not be Christabel? Or was she hurt
enough already? And again, what good would she get from Henrietta's
sacrifice? No one would gain except Henrietta herself, she could see