We leave, just as we have planned, on the last day of April. Richard's stay is complete. My uncle's prints are mounted and bound: he takes me to view them, as a sort of treat. "Fine work," he says. "You think, Maud? Hmm?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you look?"

"Yes. Fine work. I believe I shall send for Hawtrey and Huss. I shall have them come -- next week? What do you say? Shall we make an occasion of it?"

"Yes, Uncle."

I do not answer. I am thinking of the dining-room, the drawing-room -- and me, in some other shadowy place, far off. He turns to Richard.

"Rivers," he says, "should you like to come back, as a guest, with Hawtrey?"

"Unfortunate. You hear that, Maud? Most unfortunate…"

He unlocks his door. Mr Way and Charles are going about the gallery with Richard's bags. Charles is rubbing his eyes with his sleeve. -- "Get on with you!" says Mr Way savagely, kicking out with his foot. Charles lifts his head, sees us emerging from my uncle's room -- sees my uncle, I suppose -- and shakes in a sort of convulsion, and runs. My uncle also shakes, then.

Richard bows, looks sorry. "I fear, sir, I shall be occupied elsewhere."

"I will, sir," says Mr Way.

"Do you see, Rivers, the torments to which I am exposed? Mr Way, I hope you will catch that boy and whip him!"

Richard looks at me, and smiles. I do not smile back. And when, at the steps, he takes my hand, my fingers sit quite nervelessly against his own. "Good-bye," he says. I say nothing. He turns to my uncle: "Mr Lilly. Farewell to you, sir!"

"A handsome man," my uncle says, as the trap is drawn from sight. "Hmm, Maud? What, are you silent? Shan't you like it, to have to return to our solitary ways?"

We go back into the house. Mr Way pulls closed the swollen door, and the hall grows dark. I climb the stairs at my uncle's side, as I once, as a girl, climbed them with Mrs Stiles. How many times, I think, have I mounted them, since then? How many times has my heel struck this spot, that spot. How many slippers, how many strait gowns, how many gloves, have I outgrown or outworn? How many voluptuous words have I silently read? -- how many mouthed, for gentlemen?

The stairs, the slippers and gloves, the words, the gentlemen, will all remain, though I escape. Will they? I think again of the rooms of my uncles house: the dining-and drawing-room, the library. I think of the little crescent I once picked out in the paint that covers the library windows: I try to imagine it, eyeless. I remember how once I woke and watched my room seem to gather itself together out of the dark, and thought, I shall never escape! Now I know that I shall But I think that Briar will haunt me, too. -- Or else, I will haunt it, while living out some dim and partial life beyond its walls.

At last she has nothing more to show. We must only wait. We take our lunch. We walk to my mother's grave. I stare at the stone, feeling nothing. The day is mild, and damp: our shoes, as we walk, press dew from the springing green earth and mark our gowns with streaks of mud.

I think of the ghost I shall make: a neat, monotonous ghost, walking for ever on soft-soled feet, through a broken house, to the pattern of ancient carpets. But perhaps, after all, I am a ghost already. For I go to Sue and she shows me the gowns and linens she means for us to take, the jewels she means to shine, the bags she will fill; but she does it all without meeting my gaze; and I watch, and say nothing. I am more aware of her hands than of the objects she takes up; feel the stir of her breath, see the movement of her lip, but her words slip from my memory the moment she has said them.

I have surrendered myself to Richard's plan, as I once gave myself to my uncle. The plot, the flight -- they seem fired, now, not so much by my wants as by his. I am empty of want. I sit at my supper, I eat, I read; I return to Sue and let her dress me as she likes, take wine when she offers it, stand at the window at her side. She moves fretfully, from foot to foot. "Look at the moon," she says softly, "how bright it is! Look at the shadows on the grass. -- What time is it? Not eleven, yet? -- To think of Mr Rivers, somewhere upon the water, now…"

I go stealthily from the room. I know my way, I do not need a lamp, and my dark dress hides me. I go to the head of the stairs, cross quickly the broken carpets of moonlight that the windows there throw upon the floor. Then I pause, and listen. Silence. So then I go on, into the corridor which faces mine, along a path which is the mirror of the path that has led from my own rooms. At the first door I pause again, and listen again, to be sure that all is still within. This is the door to my uncle's rooms. I have never entered here, before. But, as I guess, the handle and hinges are kept greased, and turn without a sound. The rug is a thick one, and makes a whisper of my step.

There is only one thing I mean to do, before I go: one deed -- one terrible deed -- the vision of which has risen, to goad and console me, through all the bitten-down rages, the dark and uneasy sleeps, of my life at Briar; and now, as the hour of our flight nears, as the house falls silent, still, unsuspecting, I do it. Sue leaves me, to look over our bags. I hear her, unfastening buckles. -- That is all I wait for.

I go quickly and take them up -- the chain uncurling softly, I feel it slither against my glove. If it should fall! -- It does not fall. The door-key swings like a pendulum. The razor is heavier than I expect, the blade is free of its clasp, at an angle, showing its edge. I pull it a little freer, and turn it to the light: it must be sharp, for what I want it for. I think it is sharp enough. I lift my head. In the glass above the mantel, picked out against the shadows of the room, I see myself -- my hands: in one a key, in the other a blade. I might pass for a girl in an allegory. Confidence Abused.

He has his bed-curtains pulled close but keeps a light, as I do, upon a table: this seems curious to me, I should never have supposed him to be nervous of the dark. But the dim light helps me. Without moving from my place beside the door, I look about me; and at last see the two things I have come to take. On his dressing-stand, beside his jug of water: his watch-chain with, upon it, the key to his library, bound in faded velvet; and his razor.

His drawing-room is even darker, and seems smaller, than mine: he has hangings upon the walls, and more book-presses. I don't look at them. I go to his dressing-room door, put my ear to the wood; take the handle and turn it. One inch, two inches, three. -- I hold my breath, my hand upon my heart. No sound. I push the door further, stand and listen again. If he stirs, I will turn and go. Does he move? For a second there is nothing. Still I wait, uncertain. Then comes the soft, even rasp of his breathing.

But this is not that kind of story. Not yet. I stand and watch him sleep for almost a minute; and then I leave him. I go as I have come -- carefully, silently. I go to the stairs, and from there to the library, and once inside that room I lock the door at my back and light a lamp. My heart is beating hardest, now. I am queasy with fear and anticipation. But time is racing, and I cannot wait. I cross to my uncle's shelves and unfasten the glass before the presses. I begin with The Curtain Drawn Up, the book he gave me first: I take it, and open it, and set it upon his desk. Then I lift the razor, grip it tight, and fully unclasp it. The blade is stiff, but springs the last inch. It is its nature to cut, after all. Still, it is hard -- it is terribly hard, I almost cannot do it -- to put the metal for the first time to the neat and naked paper. I am almost afraid the book will shriek, and so discover me. But it does not shriek. Rather, it sighs, as if in longing for its own laceration; and when I hear that, my cuts become swifter and more true.

Behind me, the drapes to my uncle's bed do not quite meet. In the space between them a shaft of light -- so weak it is hardly light, but rather a lessening of darkness -- leads to his face. I have never seen him sleep before. In form he seems slight, like a child. The blanket is drawn to his chin, uncreased, pulled tight. His lips let out his breath in a puff. He is dreaming -- black-letter dreams, perhaps, or pica, morocco, calf. He is counting spines. His spectacles sit neatly, as if with folded arms, on the table beside his head. Beneath the lashes of one of his soft eyes there is a gleaming line of moisture. The razor is warming in my hand…

Soft as a thief, she goes. She tells me where I may walk. She does not know that I have recently stood, light as a shadow, and watched my uncle sleep. But then, we go by the servants' way, and the naked passages and stairs are strange to me, all this part of the house is strange to me. She keeps her hand in mine until we reach the basement door. Then she sets down her bag, so she may smear the key and the bolts with grease, to make them turn. She catches my eye and winks, like a boy. My heart aches in my breast.

Then the door is opened and she takes me into the night; and the park is changed, the house seems queer -- for of course, I have never before seen it at such an hour as this, I have only stood at my window and gazed out. If I stood there now, would I see myself running, Sue tugging my hand? Would I seem so bleached of depth and colour, like the lawn, the trees, the stones and stumps of ivy? For a second I hesitate, turn and watch the glass, quite sure that, if I only wait, I will see my face. Then I look at the other windows. Will no-one wake, and come, and call me back?

When I return to Sue she is at the window, wringing her hands. Midnight has sounded. She supposed me lost. But she is too relieved to scold me. "Here's your cloak," she says. "Fasten it up now, quick. Take your bag. -- Not that one, that one's too heavy for you. Now, we must go." She thinks me nervous. She puts her finger to my mouth. She says, "Be steady." Then she takes my hand and leads me through the house.

He keeps to the black part. The boat sits low upon the water -- a dark-hulled boat, slender, rising at the prow. The dark boat of my dreams. I watch it come, feel Sue's hand turn in mine; then step from her, take the rope he casts, let him guide me to my seat, unresisting. She comes beside me, staggering, her balance all gone. He braces the boat against the bank with a single oar, and as she sits, we turn, and the current takes us.

No-one speaks. No-one moves, save Richard as he rows. We glide, softly, in silence, into our dark and separate hells.

What follows? I know that the journey upon the river is a smooth one: that I should like to keep upon the boat, but am made to leave it and mount a horse. I should be afraid of the horse, at any other time; but I sit lifelessly upon it now, letting it bear me -- as, I think, I would let it throw me, if it chose to. I remember the church of flint, the stalks of honesty, my own white gloves my hand, that is bared then passed from one set of fingers to another, then bruised by the thrusting of a ring. I am made to say certain words, that I have now forgotten. I remember the minister, in a surplice smudged with grey. I do not recall his face. I know that Richard kisses me. I remember a book, the handling of a pen, the writing of my name. I do not remember the walk from the church: what I recall next is a room, Sue loosening my gown; and then a pillow, coarse against my cheek; a blanket, coarser; and weeping. My hand is bare and has that ring upon it, still.

No-one wakes, no-one calls. Sue pulls at my hand again, and I turn and follow. I have the key to the gate in the wall: when we are through and the lock is fast again I let it fall among the rushes. The sky is clear. We stand in shadow, saying nothing -- two Thisbes, awaiting a Pyramus. The moon makes the river half silver, half deepest black.

Sue's fingers slip from mine. "You must be different now," she says, and I turn my face.

"Oh, Maud," he says quietly, shaking his head. He wipes his beard and lips.

When I look again, she has left me. In her place stands Richard. He keeps for a second before the door, his eyes on mine; then he lets out his breath, puts the back of his hand to his mouth to stifle laughter.

"Our wedding-night," he says; and laughs again.

"Will you speak? Hmm, Maud? Come, you needn't be fey; not now, with me. Our wedding-night, Maud!" He has come to my side. He raises his hand and grips the head-board above my pillow and shakes it, hard, until the legs of the bed lurch and grind against the floor.

I watch him and do not speak, the blankets pulled high before my breast. I am sober, now. I am quite awake. When he falls quiet, I hear the house beyond him: the stairs expand, throw off the pressure of his step. A mouse, or bird, moves in the space above the rafters. The sounds are wrong. The thought must show in my face.

"It's queer for you, here," he says, coming closer to me. "Don't mind it. You shall be at London soon. There's more life there. Think of that." I say nothing.

I close my eyes. The shuddering continues another moment, then the bed grows still. But he keeps his arm above me, and I feel him watching. I feel the bulk of him -- seem to see the darkness of him, even through my eyelids. I sense him change. The mouse or bird still moves in the ceiling of the room, and I think he puts back his head, to follow its path. Then the house falls quiet, and he studies me again.

"Touch it," I say. "Touch it, and die. I have poison in me."

And then his breath comes, quick, against my cheek. He has blown in my face. I open my eyes. "Hey," he says softly. His look is strange. "Don't say you're afraid." He swallows. Then he brings back his arm from the head-board, slowly. I flinch, thinking he might strike me. But he does not do that. His gaze moves over my face, then settles at the hollow of my throat. He looks, as if fascinated. "How fast your heart beats," he whispers. He lowers his hand, as if he means to test, with his finger, the racing of my blood.

His hand stops, an inch from my throat. I hold his gaze, not blinking. He straightens. His mouth gives a twitch, then curls in scorn.

He has drawn back the blanket, exposing the sheet that covers the mattress, at the level of my hips. "Move over," he says. I do. He sits, and awkwardly turns.

"Did you think I wanted you?" he says. "Did you?" He almost hisses the words -- for of course, he cannot speak too loudly, in case Sue should hear. He moves away, agitatedly smoothing his hair behind his ears. A bag lies in his path, and he kicks it. "God damn it," he says. He takes off his coat, then tugs at the link in a cuff, begins to work savagely at one of his sleeves. "Must you stare so?" he says, as he bares his arm. "Haven't I already told you, you are safe? If you think I am any gladder than you, to be married --" He comes back to the bed. "I must act glad, however," he says moodily. "And this is a part of what passes for gladness, in marriage. Had you forgotten?"

A penknife. I see it, and think at once of my uncle's razor. It was in a different life, however, that I went stealthily through that sleeping house, cut the pages of books. Now I watch as Richard puts his nail to the groove of the knife and eases free the blade. It is spotted black. He looks distastefully at it, then lays it against his arm. But he does it uncertainly, flinching when the metal touches. Then he lowers the knife.

He reaches into the pocket of his trousers and draws something out.

"Don't look, so uselessly. Have you no blood about you, to save me the pain? None of those -- courses, that women suffer?" I say nothing. His mouth twists again. "Well, that is like you. I should have thought that, being obliged to bleed, you might as well bleed to some advantage; but, no…"

"God damn it," he says again. He smooths his whiskers, his hair. He catches my eye.

"No, no," he says. "I shall do it, in a moment." He draws in his breath, moves the blade further down his arm, rests it in one of the creases at the base of his palm, where the flesh is hairless. He pauses again, takes another breath; slices, quickly. "Good Christ!" he says, wincing. A little blood springs to the cut -- it seems dark, in the candle-light, upon the white heel of his hand. He lets it fall to the bed. There is not much of it. He presses with his thumb at the skin of his wrist and palm, and then it falls faster. He does not catch my eye.

"Do you mean," I say, "to insult me, in every possible way?"

"Be quiet," he answers. We are still speaking in whispers. "This is for both our good. I don't see you offering up your arm to the knife." At once, I offer it. He waves it away.

I study his face. "Don't you know?"

After a moment, however, he says quietly: "Do you suppose that enough?"

"But --"

"No, I do not know."

The blood still feebly runs. He curses. I think of Agnes, showing me her red and swollen mouth. I turn away from him, in a sort of sickness. "Come, Maud," he says then, "tell me before I fall in a swoon. You must have read of such things. I am sure your uncle must have some entry on it in his damn Index -- doesn't he? Maud?"

I look again, reluctantly, at the spreading drops of blood; and I nod. As a final gesture he puts his wrist to them, and smears them.

"But what?" He blinks. "You mean Agnes, I suppose. Don't flatter her. There are more ways of shaming a virtuous girl, than that one. You ought to know."

Then he frowns at his cut. His cheek is quite white. He makes a face. "How ill a man may grow," he says, "from the sight of the spilling of a little of his own blood. What monsters you females must be, to endure this, month upon month. No wonder you are prone to madness. See how the flesh parts?" He shows me his hand. "I think after all I cut too deep. That was your fault, provoking me. Have you brandy? I think a little brandy would restore me."

"No brandy. What have you, then? Some draught or other? Come, I see by your face that you do." He looks about him. "Where is it kept?"

He has drawn out his handkerchief, and now presses it to his arm. I say, "I have no brandy."

I hesitate; but now he has named it, the desire for drops begins to make its creeping way about my heart and limbs. "In my leather bag," I say. He brings the bottle to me, draws out its stopper, puts his nose to it, grimaces. "Bring me a glass, also," I say. He finds a cup, adds a little dusty water.

"Not like that, for me," he says, as I let the medicine slip. "That will serve tor you. I want it quicker." He takes the bottle from me, uncovers his cut, lets a single drop fall into the parted flesh. It stings. He winces. Where it runs, he licks it.

Then he sighs, half closing his eyes, watching me as I drink then shiver then lean back upon my pillow, the cup at my breast.

At length, he smiles. He laughs. " "The Fashionable Couple on their Wedding Night," " he says. "They would write a column on us, in the London papers."

I shiver again, draw the blankets higher; the sheet falls, covering the smears of blood. I reach for the bottle. He reaches it first, however, and puts it out of my grasp.

"No, no," he says. "Not while you keep so contrary. I shall have it, tonight."

"I should not be astonished, after all," he says, "to wake to the grip of your fingers at my throat. No, I shall not risk it."

He puts it in his pocket, and I am too weary to try to take it from him. He stands and yawns, wipes his face, rubs hard at his eyes. "How tired I am!" he says. "It is past three o'clock, do you know?" I say nothing, and he shrugs. But he lingers at the foot of the bed, looking down, in a hesitating manner, at the place at my side; then he sees my face, and pretends to shudder.

He steps to the fire, wets his thumb and finger upon his tongue, puts out the candle; then he sits in a huddle in the arm-chair and makes a blanket of his coat. He swears against the cold, the pose, the angles of the chair, for perhaps a minute. But he sleeps, sooner than I do.

And when he does, I rise, go quickly to the window, put the curtain back. The moon is still bright, and I don't want to lie in darkness. But after all, every surface that takes up the silver light is strange to me; and when once I reach, to put my fingers to some mark upon the wall, the mark and the wall in taking my touch seem only to grow stranger. My cloak and gown and linen are closed in the press. My bags are shut. I look, and look, for something of mine; and see only at last, in the shadow of the wash-hand stand, my shoes. I go to them, and stoop, and place my hands upon them. Then I draw back and almost straighten; then touch them again.

Then I lie in the bed, and listen hard for the sounds I am used to -- for bells and growling levers. There are only those meaningless noises -- the yawning boards, the creeping bird or mouse. I put back my head and gaze at the wall behind me. Beyond it lies Sue. If she turned in her bed, if she said my name, I think I would hear it. She might make any sound, any at all -- I would catch it, I am certain I would.

"See here," he says, "my shoulder. You see it? It is rising from its socket -- it is quite thrown out. I shall be deformed, in a week. As for these creases --" He angrily smooths his trousers. "I should have brought Charles, after all. At this rate I shall arrive at London only to be laughed off its streets."

She makes no sound. Richard shifts in his chair. The moonlight creeps across the floor. In time, I sleep. I sleep and dream of Briar. But the passages of the house are not as I recall them. I am late for my uncle, and lost.

She comes each morning, after that, to wash me, to dress me, to set food before me, to take away my untouched plate; but, as in the last of our days at Briar, she never meets my gaze. The room is small. She sits near me, but rarely do we speak. She sews. I play at cards -- the two of hearts with the crease of my heel upon it, rough beneath my naked finger. Richard keeps all day from the room. At night, he curses. He curses the filthy lanes of the country, that muddy his boots. He curses my silence, my strangeness. He curses the wait. Above all, he curses the angular arm-chair.

London, I think. The word means nothing to me now.

"Very good," he says, watching me drink. "Not much longer, now. Why, how thin and pale you've grown! -- and Sue grows sleeker by the hour, like one of Mother Cream's black-faced sows. Get her into your best gown tomorrow, will you?"

I do. I will do anything, now, to bring an end to our long wait. I will pretend fear, and nervousness, and weeping, while he leans to caress or chide me. I will do it, not looking at Sue -- or else, looking at her slyly, desperately, to see if she colours or seems ashamed. She never does. Her hands, that I remember sliding upon me, pressing, turning, opening me up -- her hands, when they touch me now, are perfectly lifeless and white. Her face is closed. She only waits, as we do, for the coming of the doctors.

He rides out, every other day, for news of my uncle. He smokes so many cigarettes the stain on his scorched forefinger spreads to the finger beside it. Now and then he lets me take a dose of my draught; but he always keeps hold of the bottle.

"I cannot see them," I say. "You must send them back. They must come another time."

"I am too nervous."

We wait -- I cannot say how long. Two weeks, or three. At last: "They come tomorrow," Richard tells me one night; and then, next morning: They come today. You remember?"

"Don't be tiresome, Maud."

"You will," he answers; "for in seeing them you bring this thing to completion. You hate it here. Now is our time to leave."

"I won't see them!" I say.

He stands and dresses, fastening his collar, his neck-tie. His coat lies neatly on the bed.

He does not answer. He turns, to raise a brush to his head. I lean and seize his coat -- find the pocket, the bottle of drops -- but he sees, comes quickly to me and plucks it from my hand.

I have woken from terrible dreams.

"Oh, no," he says, as he does it. "I won't have you half in a dream -- or risk you muddling the dose, and so spoiling everything! Oh, no. You must be quite clear in your mind."

He returns the bottle to the pocket. When I reach again, he dodges.

"Not yet," he says. "Be good. Work for it."

"Let me have it," I say. "Richard, let me have it. One drop only, I swear." My lips jump about the words. He shakes his head, wipes at the nap of the coat to remove the impression of my fingers.

"You shall try, for my sake. For our sake, Maud."

"I cannot! I shan't be calm, without a dose of it."

"Yes, yes, damn us all, damn us all." He sighs; then returns to the brushing of his hair. When after a moment I sink back, he catches my eye.

"Of course," he says. He pats at his pocket, at the bottle of drops. "Think of London," he says. "There are druggists on every street corner, there."

My mouth trembles in scorn. "You think," I say, "I shall still want my medicine, in London?"

"Damn you!"

"Why throw such a tantrum, hey?" he says, almost kindly. And then: "You are calmer, now? Very good. You know what to do, when they see you? Have Sue make you neat, no more than that. Be modest. Weep if you must, a little. You are sure what to say?"

I am, despite myself; for we have planned this, many times. I wait, then nod.

He takes them first to talk with Sue. Of course, they suppose her his wife, turned mad, thinking herself a servant, speaking in the manner of a maid, keeping to a maid's room.

Then he takes up his pen-knife and stands at the fire and cleans his nails -- now and then giving a flick of the blade, to cast slivers of dirt, fastidiously, into the flames.

I hear the creaking of the stairs and floorboards beneath their boots. I hear their voices -- low, monotonous -- but not their words. Sue's voice I do not hear at all. I sit upon the bed until they come, and then I stand and curtsey.

They nod. I say nothing, yet. But I think my look must be strange. I see them studying me. Richard also watches. Then he comes close.

The words sound weak, even to my ears. He turns his head, saying nothing, perhaps suppressing a smile.

"Susan," says Richard quietly. "My wife's maid."

"A faithful girl," he says to the doctors. "Her strength has been sadly overtaxed, these past two weeks." He makes me walk from the bed to the armchair, puts me in the light of the window. "Sit here," he says gently, "in your mistress's chair. Be calm, now. These gentlemen only wish to ask you a number of trifling questions. You must answer them honestly."

Richard watches.

"Yes, sir."

He presses my hand. I think he does it to reassure or to warn me; then I reel his fingers close about one of mine. I still wear my wedding-ring. He draws it free and holds it, hidden, against his palm.

"And your name is Susan Smith?"

"Very good," says one of the doctors, more satisfied now. The other makes notes in a book. I watch him turn a page and, suddenly, long for paper. "Very good. We have seen your mistress. You do well to think of her comfort and health for -- I am sorry to tell you this -- we fear she is ill. Very ill indeed. You know she believes her name to be your name, her history one that resembles yours? You know that?"

"Yes, sir," I say, in a whisper.

I nod.

"And you were maid to Mrs Rivers -- Miss Lilly, as was -- in her uncle's house, of Briar, before her marriage?"

"No, sir. I never heard of them. They are all Mrs Rivers's fancy."

"And before that -- where was your place? Not with a family named Dunraven, at the supposed address of Whelk Street, Mayfair?"

I swallow. "Mrs Rivers has often seemed strange," I say quietly. "The servants at Briar would speak of her as of a lady not quite right, in the brain. I believe her mother was mad, sir."

"Yes, sir," I say. I gaze at the floor. The boards are scuffed, there are splinters rising from the wood, thick as needles.

I speak, as a servant might. And I name, reluctantly, some other house and family -- some family of Richard's acquaintance, who might be relied on to provide the history we need, if the doctors think to seek them out. We do not think they will, however.

The doctor nods again. "And Mrs Rivers," he says. "You speak of her "fancy". When did such fancies begin?"

"Now, now," says Richard smoothly, interrupting. "The doctors don't want to hear the gossip of servants. Go on with your observations, only."

"And Mrs Rivers's marriage," says the doctor. "How did that affect her?"

"It was that, sir," I say, "which made the change in her. Before that time, she had seemed to love Mr Rivers; and we had all at Briar supposed his care, which was' -- I catch Richard's eye -- "so good, sir! -- we had all supposed it would lift her out of herself. Then, since her wedding-night, she has started up very queer…"

The doctor looks at his colleague. "You hear," he says, "how well the account matches Mrs Rivers's own? It is quite remarkable! -- as if, in making a burden of her life, she seeks to hand that burden to another, better able to bear it. She has made a fiction of herself!" He returns to me. "A fiction, indeed," he says thoughtfully. "Tell me this, Miss Smith: does your mistress care for books? for reading?"

I meet his gaze, but my throat seems to close, or be splintered, like the boards on the floor. I cannot answer. Richard speaks in my behalf. "My wife," he says, "was born to a literary life. Her uncle, who raised her, is a man dedicated to the pursuit of learning, and saw to her education as he might have seen to a son's. Mrs Rivers's first passion was books."

"There you have it!" says the doctor. "Her uncle, an admirable gentleman I don't doubt. But the over-exposure of girls to literature -- The founding of women's colleges --" His brow is sleek with sweat. "We are raising a nation of brain-cultured women. Your wife's distress, I'm afraid to say, is part of a wider malaise. I fear for the future of our race, Mr Rivers, I may tell you now. And her wedding-night, you say, the start of this most recent bout of insanity? Could that" -- he drops his voice meaningfully, and exchanges a glance with the doctor who writes -- "be plainer?" He taps at his lip. "I saw how she shrank from my touch, when I felt for the pulse at her wrist. I noted, too, that she wears no marriage ring."

"A wretched case," says the doctor. "But we will work on your wife, you may be sure, to shake her of her unnatural fancy --"

"You might imagine the sensations that produced, sir, in my breast." He puts his hand to his eyes, and sits heavily upon the bed; then rises, as if in horror. "This bed!" he says hoarsely. "Our marriage-bed, I thought it. To think my wife would rather the room of a servant, a pallet of straw --!" He shudders. That's enough, I think. No more. But he is a man in love with his own roguery.

"Here it is," he says gravely, holding out the yellow band. "She put it from her, with a curse. -- For she speaks like a servant now, and thinks nothing of mouthing filthy words. God knows where she learned them!" He bites at his lip.

Richard starts into life at the words, and pretends to draw something from his pocket. They say fortune favours villains.

Unnatural?" says Richard. He shudders again. His look grows strange. "Ah sir," he says, "you don't know all. There is something else. I had hoped to keep it from you. I feel now, I cannot."

He bites at his hand. The doctors stare, then turn to gaze at me.

"Indeed?" says the doctor. The other pauses, his pencil raised.

Richard wets his mouth; and all at once I know what he means to say, and quickly turn my face to his. He marks it. He speaks, before I can.

"Surely," says Richard, coming to me, putting his hand heavily upon my shoulder, "surely these tears speak for themselves? Do we need to name the unhappy passion? Must we oblige Miss Smith to rehearse the words, the artful poses -- the caresses -- to which my distracted wife has made her subject? Aren't we gentlemen?"

"Susan," he says, "you do well to feel shame in behalf of your mistress. You need feel none, however, in behalf of yourself. No guilt attaches to you. You did nothing to invite or encourage the gross attentions my wife, in her madness, attempted to force on you --"

"Miss Smith?"

"Miss Smith," says the first, leaning closer, "is this true?"

I think of Sue. I think of her, not as she must be now, in the room beyond the wall -- satisfied to have betrayed me, glad to suppose herself about to return at last to her home, the dark thieves' den, in London. I think of her holding herself above me, her hair let down, You pearl…

I have begun to weep.

"Of course," says the doctor quickly, moving back. "Of course. Miss Smith, your grief does you credit. You need not fear for your safety, now. You need not fear for the safety of your mistress. Her care will soon be our concern, not yours. Then we shall keep her, and cure her of all her ills. Mr Rivers, you understand -- a case such as this -- the treatment may well be a lengthy one…?"

Then he comes back. He closes the door. He steps to me and tosses the wedding-ring into my lap. He rubs his hands together and almost capers.

They rise. They have brought papers, and look for a surface on which to put them out. Richard clears the dressing-table of brushes and pins and they lay them there, then sign: a paper each. I don't watch them do it, but hear the grinding of the pen. I hear them moving together, to shake each others hands.

The staircase thunders as they go down. I keep in my seat beside the window. Richard stands in the path to the house while they drive off.

"You devil," I say, without passion, wiping the tears from my cheek.

Then Sue comes from her room, to knock upon our door. He keeps his pose, but calls for her to enter.

"Look at me," he says, "and tell me, honestly, that you don't admire me."

"I hate you."

He snorts. He moves to the back of my chair and puts his hands to my head, one hand to either side of my face; then tilts it back until our gazes meet.

"Hate yourself, then. We're alike, you and I. More alike than you know. You think the world ought to love us, for the kinks in the fibres of our hearts? The world scorns us. Thank God it does! There was never a profit to be got from love; from scorn, however, you may twist riches, as filthy water may be wrung from a cloth. You know it is true. You are like me. I say it again: hate me, hate yourself."

She comes to dress me, for the final time.

I close my eyes. I say, "I do."

His hands are warm upon my face, at least.

"Look here," he says when she does, his voice quite changed, "at your mistress. Don't you think her eyes a little brighter…?"

We leave next day, for the madhouse.

"Thank you, Sue," I say, in the old soft way, each time she hooks a button or draws a lace. I wear, still, the gown in which I left Briar, that is spotted with mud and river-water. She wears my gown of silk -- blue silk, against which the white of her wrists and throat is turned to the colour of cream, and the browns or her hair and eyes are made rich. She has grown handsome. She moves about the room, taking up my linen, my shoes, my brushes and pins, and putting them carefully in bags. Two bags, there are: one destined for London, the other for the madhouse -- the first, as she supposes, for herself; the second for me.

It is hard to watch her make her choices -- to see her frown over a petticoat, a pair of stockings or shoes, to know she is thinking, These will surely be good enough for mad people and doctors. This she ought to take, in case the nights are cool. Now, that and those (the bottle of drops, my gloves) she must have. -- I move them, when she leaves me, and place them deep in the other bag. And one other thing I put with them, that she does not know I keep: the silver thimble, from the sewing-box at Briar, with which she smoothed my pointed tooth.

The coach comes, sooner than I think it will.

"Thank God," says Richard. He carries his hat. He is too tall for this low and tilting house: when we step outside, he stretches. I have kept to my room so long, however, the day feels vast to me.

Then we drive. I feel it, as more than a matter of galloping horses and turning wheels. It is like an undoing of my first journey, with Mrs Stiles, from the madhouse to Briar: I put my face to the window as the carriage slows, and almost expect to see the house and the mothers I was snatched from. I should remember them still, I know it. But, that house was large. This one is smaller, and lighter. It has rooms for female lunatics, only. That house was set in bare earth. This one has a bed of flowers beside its door -- tall flowers, with tips like spikes.

I walk with Sue's arm gripped in mine, and at the door of the coach, when I must give it up -- give it up, for ever! -- I think I hesitate.

"Now, now," says Richard, taking my hand from her. "No time for sentiment."

Then they take her. He helps her into their hands, and stands before me at the door, looking out.

"Speak," he whispers, "damn you." Then I sing out, clear, mechanically: "Oh! My own poor mistress!" Her brown eyes -- wide -- with that darker fleck. Her tumbling hair. "Oh! Oh! My heart is breaking!"

"Don't be afraid," he says.

"Wait," I hear her say. "What are you doing?" Then: "Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" -- an odd and formal phrase.

The doctors speak in soothing tones, until she begins to curse; then their voices grow hard. Richard draws back. The floor of the carriage tilts, the doorway rises, and I see her -- the two men's hands upon her arms, a nurse gripping her waist. Her cloak is falling from her shoulders, her hat is tilted, her hair is tearing from its pins. Her face is red and white. Her look is wild, already. Her eyes are fixed on mine. I sit like a stone, until Richard takes my arm and presses, hard, upon my wrist.

The cry seems to ring about the coach, even after Richard has swung closed the door and the driver whipped the horse into life and turned us. We do not speak. Beside Richard's head is a lozenge-shaped window of milky glass, and for a moment I see her again: still struggling, lifting her arm to point or reach -- Then the road makes a dip. There come trees. I take off my wedding-ring and throw it to the floor. I find, in my bag, a pair of gloves, and draw them on. Richard watches my trembling hands.

I fall back in my seat. Richard catches my eye.

He blinks, and attempts to smile. But his mouth moves strangely and his face, behind his beard, is perfectly white. He folds his arms. He sits, first one way and then another. He crosses and uncrosses his legs. At length he takes a cigarette from his pocket, and a match, and tries to draw down the carriage window. It will not come. His hands are damp, grow damper, and finally slide upon the glass. "Damn this!" he cries then. He rises, staggers, beats upon the ceiling for the driver to stop the horse, then fumbles with the key. We have gone no more than a mile or two, but he jumps to the ground and paces, coughs. He puts his hand to the lock of springing hair at his brow, many times. I watch him.

"Don't speak to me," I say, almost spitting the words. "If you speak to me, I shall kill you."

"How like a villain," I say, when he takes his seat again, "you are now."

"And how like a lady, you!" he answers, with a sneer.

Then he turns his face from me, rests his head against the jolting cushion; and pretends, with twitching eye-lids, to sleep.

"Well --" he says.

We make part of our journey like this, but then must give up the asylum carriage and take a train. I have never ridden a train before. We wait at a country station. We wait at an inn, since Richard is still afraid that my uncle will have sent out men to watch for us. He has the landlord put us in a private room and bring me tea and bread-and-butter. I will not look at the tray. The tea grows brown and cool, the bread curls. He stands at the fire and rattles the coins in his pocket, then bursts out: "God damn you, do you think I take food for you, for free?" He eats the bread-and-butter himself. "I hope I see my money soon," he says. "God knows I need it, after three months with you and your uncle, doing what he calls a gentleman's labour, receiving wages that would barely keep a proper gentleman in cuffs. Where's that damn porter? How much do they mean to swindle me of for our tickets, I wonder?"

My own eyes stay open. I gaze through the lozenge of glass at the road we have travelled -- a winding red road, made cloudy by dust, like a thread of blood escaping from my heart.

At last a boy appears to fetch us and take our bags. We stand on the station platform and study the rails. They shine, as if polished. In time they begin to purr, and then -- unpleasantly, like nerves in failing teeth -- to hum. The hum becomes a shriek. Then the train comes hurtling about the track, a plume of smoke at its head, its many doors unfolding.

"That I must pay a man to think me lewd, so I may sit chastely, with my own little virgin of a wife! Let me tell you now, I am keeping a separate account of the costs of this journey, to charge against your share."

I keep my veil about my face. Richard hands a coin to the guard, saying easily: "You'll see to it, perhaps, that my wife and I are kept quite private, till London?"

I say nothing. The train has shuddered, as if beaten with hammers, and now begins to roll upon its tracks. I feel the growing speed of it, and grip the hanging strap of leather until my hand cramps and blisters in its glove.

The guard says he will; and when Richard comes and takes his place in the coach across from me he is more peevish than ever.

So the journey proceeds. It seems to me that we must cross vast distances of space. -- For you will understand that my sense of distance and space is rather strange.

Though we have come so swiftly we have travelled no more than twenty miles, and have another thirty to go. I sit, still gripping the strap, leaning close to the glass; but the station is filled with men and women -- the women in groups, the men idly walking; and from them I shrink. Soon the train gives a hiss, and gathers its bulk, and shudders back into terrible life.

They do not. The engine speeds us onward, then slows, and again there are streets and the spires of churches -- more streets and spires than I have yet seen; more houses, and between them a steady traffic of cattle and vehicles and people. London! I think, with a lurch of my heart. But Richard studies me as I gaze, and smiles unpleasantly. "Your natural home," he says. We stop at the station and I see the name of it: MAIDENHEAD.

We stop at a village of red-bricked houses, and then at another, very similar; and then at a third, rather larger. At every station there is what seems to me a press of people clamouring to board, the thud and shake of slamming doors. I am afraid the crowds will overburden the train -- perhaps overturn it. I think, I deserve to be crushed in the wreck of a train; and almost hope they do.

I say, "Don't look at me."

I wonder if Sue is very much injured. I wonder what kind of place they have her in, now.

Richard tries to see beyond my veil. "You're not weeping, are you?" he says. "Come on, don't trouble over it still."

"Should you rather be back at Briar, with the books? You know you should not. You know you have wanted this. You'll forget, soon, the manner in which you got it. Believe me, I know these things. You must only be patient. We must both be patient now. We have many weeks to pass together, before the fortune becomes ours. I am sorry I spoke harshly, before. Come, Maud. We shall be at London, soon. Things will seem different to you there, I assure you…"

We leave the streets of Maidenhead. We pass through trees. Beyond the trees there are open parklands, and houses -- some as great as my uncle's, some greater. Here and there are cottages with pens of pigs, with gardens set with broken sticks for climbing beans, and hung with lines of laundry. Where the lines are full there is laundry hung from windows, from trees, on bushes, on chairs, between the shafts of broken carts -- laundry everywhere, drooping and yellow. I keep my pose and watch it all. Look, Maud, I think. Here is your future. Here's all your liberty, unfolding like a bolt of cloth…

I do not answer. At last, with a curse, he gives it up. The day is darkening now -- or rather, the sky is darkening, as we draw close to the city. There come streaks of soot upon the glass. The landscape is slowly growing meaner. The cottages have begun to be replaced by wooden dwellings, some with broken windows and boards. The gardens are giving way to patches of weed; soon the weed gives way to ditches, the ditches to dark canals, to dreary wastes of road, to mounds of stones or soil or ashes. Still, Even ashes, I think, are a part of your freedom -- and I feel, despite myself, the kindling in me of a sort of excitement. But then, the excitement becomes unease. I have always supposed London a place, like a house in a park, with walls: I've imagined it rising, straight and clean and solid. I have not supposed it would sprawl so brokenly, through villages and suburbs. I've believed it complete: but now, as I watch, there come stretches of wet red land, and gaping trenches; now come half-built houses, and half-built churches, with glassless windows and slateless roofs and jutting spars of wood, naked as bones.

-- LEAD COFFINS.

-- SUPPORTED ENTIRELY.

-- BROUGHAMS & NEAT CARRIAGES.

-- PAPER-STAINERS.

-- LEATHER AND GRINDERY.

There are words, all over the face of London. I see them, and cover my eyes. When I look again we have sunk: brick walls, thick with soot, have risen about the train and cast the coach in gloom. Then comes a great, vast, vaulting roof of tarnished glass, hung about with threads of smoke and steam and fluttering birds. We shudder to a frightful halt. There is the shrieking of other engines, a thudding of doors, the pressing passage -- it seems to me -- of a thousand, thousand people.

Words, everywhere. Words, six-feet high. Words, shrieking and bellowing:

-- SHOP TO LET.

-- SPANISH BLINDS.

-- OIL TALLOW & COTTON WASTE.

-- BY VOLUNTARY SUBSCRIPTION.

-- TO LET!

Now there are so many smuts upon the glass they show like faults in the fabric of my veil. The train begins to rise. I don't like the sensation. We begin to cross streets -- grey streets, black streets -- so many monotonous streets, I think I shall never be able to tell them apart! Such a chaos of doors and windows, of roofs and chimneys, of horses and coaches and men and women! Such a muddle of hoardings and garish signs:

-- TO LET!

A whistle is blown and men, in dark suits -- ordinary men, gentlemen -- pass by us, running. We take our place in the hackney at last, and are jerked out of the terminus into choked and filthy roads. Richard feels me tense. "Are you startled, by the streets?" he says. "We must pass through worse, I'm afraid. What did you expect? This is the city, where respectable men live side by side with squalor. Don't mind it. Don't mind it at all. We are going to your new home."

"Paddington terminus," says Richard. "Come on."

He moves and speaks more quickly here. He is changed. He does not look at me -- I wish he would, now. He finds a man to take our bags. We stand in a line of people -- a queue, I know the word -- and wait for a carriage -- a hackney, I know that word also, from my uncle's books. One may kiss in a hackney; one may take any kind of liberty with one's lover; one tells one's driver to go about the Regent's Park. I know London. London is a city of opportunities fulfilled. This place, of jostling and clamour, I do not know. It is thick with purposes I do not understand. It is marked with words, but I cannot read it. The regularity, the numberless repetition, of brick, of house, of street, of person -- of dress, and feature, and expression -- stuns and exhausts me. I stand at Richard's side and keep my arm in his. If he should leave me --!

"To our house," he answers. And he studies me a moment longer, then reaches across me. "Here, if the sight troubles you --" He pulls down the blind.

And so once again we sit, and sway to the motion of a coach, in a kind of twilight; but we are pressed about, this time, by all the roar of London.

"To our house," I say. I think: There, with the doors and windows shut, I will grow calm. I will bathe, I will rest, I will sleep.

Be bold, I am thinking. God damn you, Maud! You have longed for this. You have given up Sue, you have given up everything, for this. Be bold! Richard pays the man, then returns for our bags. "From here we must walk," he says. I climb out, unassisted, and blink at the light -- though the light here is dim enough: we have lost the sun, and the sky is anyway thick with cloud -- brown cloud, like the dirty fleece of a sheep. I have expected to find myself at the door to his house, but there are no houses here: we have entered streets that appear to me unspeakably shabby and mean -- are hedged on one side by a great, dead wall, on the other by the lime-stained arches of a bridge. Richard moves off. I catch at his arm.

I do not see it when we go about the park. I do not see what route the driver takes, at all: perhaps I should not know it, if I did, though I have studied maps of the city, and know the placing of the Thames. I cannot say, when we stop, how long we have driven for -- so preoccupied am I with the desperate stir of my senses and heart.

"You are still afraid that my uncle may have sent men, to watch us?"

"Is this right?" I say.

"Not far, now," he says, kindly enough; his grip is tight, however. We leave that road and turn into another: here I can see the stained and broken face of what I take to be a single great house, but which is in fact the rear of a terrace of narrow dwellings. The air smells riverish, rank. People watch us, curiously. That makes me walk faster. Soon we turn again, into a lane of crunching cinders. Here there are children, in a group: they are standing idly about a bird, which lurches and hops. They have tied its wings with twine. When they see us, they come and press close. They want money, or to tug at my sleeve, my cloak, my veil. Richard kicks them away. They swear for a minute, then return to the bird. We take another, dirtier, path -- Richard all the time gripping me harder, walking faster, faster, certain of his way.

"Quite right," he answers. "Come, don't be alarmed. We cannot live grandly, yet. And we must make our entrance the quiet way, that's all."

He again moves off. "Come. We can talk soon, indoors. Not here. Come on, this way. Pick up your skirts."

He walks quicker than ever now, and I am slow to follow. When he sees me hanging back he holds our bags in one hand and, with the other, takes my wrist.

"We are very close now," he says. "Don't mind this filth, this is nothing. All London is filthy like this. Just a little further, I promise. And then you may rest."

And at last, he slows. We have reached a court, with a thick mud floor and nettles. The walls are high, and running with damp. There is no open route from here, only two or three narrow covered passages, filled with darkness. Into one of these he makes to draw me, now; but, so black and foul is it, I suddenly hesitate, and pull against his grip.

"Come to where?" I ask him.

"Come on," he says, turning round, not smiling.

What can I do? I cannot go back, alone, to the children, the labyrinth of lanes, the street, the city. I cannot go back to Sue. I am not meant to. Everything has been impelling me here, to this dark point. I must go forward, or cease to exist. I think again of the room that is waiting for me: of the door, with its key that will turn; of the bed, on which I shall lie and sleep, and sleep -- I hesitate, one second more; then let him draw me into the passage. It is short, and ends with a flight of shallow stairs, leading downwards; and these, in turn, end at a door, on which he knocks. From beyond the door there comes at once the barking of a dog, then soft, quick footsteps, a grinding bolt. The dog falls silent. The door is opened, by a fair-haired boy -- I suppose, the housekeeper's boy. He looks at Richard and nods.

His voice is tired, hard. I look behind me. I see the other passages, but the muddy path he has led me down is hidden -- as if the glistening walls have parted to let us come, then closed to trap me.

"To your new life, that has waited for you to start it, too long. To our house. Our housekeeper expects us. Come, now. -- Or shall I leave you here?"

"All right," answers Richard. "Is Aunty home? Here's a lady, look, come to stay."

The room beyond is a kind of kitchen -- I suppose, a servants' kitchen, for it is small, and windowless, dark and unwholesome, and chokingly hot: there is a good fire lit, and one or two smoking lamps upon a table and -- perhaps, after all, these are the grooms' quarters -- a brazier in a cage, with tools about it. Beside the brazier is a pale man in an apron who, on seeing us come, sets down some fork or file and wipes his hands and looks me over, frankly.

"All right?" he says.

Before the fire sit a young woman and a boy: the girl fat-faced, red-haired, also watching me freely; the boy sallow and scowling, chewing with broken teeth on a strip of dry meat, and dressed -- I notice this, even in my confusion -- in an extraordinary coat, that seems pieced together from many varieties of fur. We holds, between his knees, a squirming dog, his hand about its jaws to keep it from barking.

The boy surveys me, I see him squinting to make out the features behind my veil. Then he smiles, nods again, draws back the door to let us pass him; closes it tightly at our backs.

He looks at Richard and then at me. He surveys my coat and gloves and bonnet. He whistles. "What price them togs," he says.

"Good boy," she says.

I look at Richard. I think he will speak, or lead me on. But he has taken his hand from me and stands with folded arms, very leisurely. He is smiling, but smiling oddly. Everyone is silent. No-one moves save the white-haired woman. She has left her chair and comes about the table. She is dressed in taffeta, that rustles. Her face has a blush, and shines. She comes to me, she stands before me, her head weaves as she tries to catch the line of my features. She moves her mouth, wets her lips. Her gaze is still close and terribly eager. When she raises her blunt red hands to me, I flinch.-- "Richard," I say. But he still does nothing, and the woman's look, that is so awful and so strange, compels me. I stand and let her fumble for my veil. She puts it back. And then her gaze changes, grows stranger still, when she sees my face. She touches my cheek, as if uncertain it will remain beneath her fingers.

She keeps her eyes on mine, but speaks to Richard. Her voice is thick with the tears of age, or of emotion.

Then he flinches as, from another chair -- a rocking chair, that creaks as it tilts -- a white-haired woman leans to strike him. I suppose her the housekeeper. She has watched me, more closely and more eagerly than any of the others. She holds a bundle: now she puts it down and struggles from her seat, and the bundle gives a shudder. This is more astonishing than the lighted brazier, the coat of fur -- it is a sleeping, swollen-headed baby in a blanket.