An Unofficial rose

She had been for years unwilling to see that Randall hated her, she had been unwilling to use that word even to herself. But lately she had been compelled to see it, to see the strength and a little to understand the nature of that hatred. Randall saw her as the destroyer, as the devil.

These considerations, however, were very far from adding up to an answer. There were, she felt at times, insuperable barriers between herself and Felix. There was Miranda. The child worshipped her father. Would she tolerate a step-father? A

A

She wished that she had not asked Felix for her name; pale and silent now behind the name, like a funeral effigy, stood the' figure, both pathetic and menacing, of the French girl, whom A

A

Douglas was really the — only person she could talk to. He was not impecably wise, but he was discreet and the scrupulousness of his attachment to her could serve instead of, could even induce, wisdom. So she had summoned him. And as she now emerged from the nursery and crossed the road she caught sight of him further down the hill entering the main gate of Grayhallock. When she arrived he was already waiting in the drawing-room.

'My dear A

A

She said, 'Douglas, I want an exorcism.

'An exorcism?

'I think I'm going mad.

Swa

'No thanks, said A

'I'm not sure that it is love any more, said A

'Oh yes it is, said Swa

'Marriage, said A

'I don't know, said Swa

There was a hardness in the words which bruised A

'Yes, of course, said Swa

A

'I don't think you should be in any hurry to do so, said Swa

'So I should devote the rest of my life to purifying my image of the absent Randall?

'This isn't like you, A

'I don't know what I'm like any more. I feel how I've lived all the time in unconsciousness.

'Being good is a state of unconsciousness.

'Then perhaps I shall stop being good. It looks as if it's going to be too difficult from now on anyway. She sat down again and pushed her hair back.

'You're tired out. Can't you manage a holiday?

'Someone offered to drive me to Greece.

'Well, why don't you go? Do go. Clare and I can keep an eye on things here.

She felt again that unfamiliar sensation and she saw herself on the road south in the very dark blue Mercedes. 'Ah, I've been dead all these years.

'You are precisely mistaken, said Swa

A

'You're doing me a lot of good, she said.

Swa

'I'm so glad, he said. 'I know we think alike really. Prayer, if I may say' so, is so important here. I have known constant prayer to remove the most rooted resentment.

'Ah, but I don't feel resentment, said A

'If you can love him now and keep him in your heart that will be a joy that is better than happiness.

'Better than happiness. She rose to her feet. She wanted to be alone now.

'The marriage bond is an indissoluble mystical union of souls.

Who knows what good your love may not do him, even if you never meet again.