He had never thought of her as a woman who wept and clung: there was a
lucidity in her intuitions that made them appear to be the result of
reasoning. Now he saw the cruelty he had committed in detaching her from
the normal conditions of life; he felt, too, the insight with which she
had hit upon the real cause of their suffering. Their life was
"impossible," as she had said--and its worst penalty was that it had made
any other life impossible for them. Even had his love lessened, he was
bound to her now by a hundred ties of pity and self-reproach; and she,
poor child! must turn back to him as Latude returned to his cell....
A new sound startled him: it was the stealthy closing of Lydia's door. He
crept to his own and heard her footsteps passing down the corridor. Then
he went back to the window and looked out.
A minute or two later he saw her go down the steps of the porch and enter
the garden. From his post of observation her face was invisible, but
something about her appearance struck him. She wore a long travelling
cloak and under its folds he detected the outline of a bag or bundle. He
drew a deep breath and stood watching her.
She walked quickly down the laurustinus alley toward the gate; there she
paused a moment, glancing about the little shady square. The stone benches
under the trees were empty, and she seemed to gather resolution from the
solitude about her, for she crossed the square to the steam-boat landing,
and he saw her pause before the ticket-office at the head of the wharf.
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