Then she
turned her face to the land, weary of waiting, weary of the bright sea and
sky, and the music of the gulls, and of life. She sat down again presently,
and put her hand over her face and struggled with her thoughts. Manifold
fears compassed her mind about, but one, not felt till then, rose now, a
giant above the rest. Yesterday she had been all alarm for "Mister Jan";
to-day there came terror for herself. Something said "He has gone, he has
left you." Her brain, without any warning, framed the words and spoke them
to her. It was as though a stranger had brought the news, and she rose up
white and stricken at this fatal explanation of the artist's continued
absence. She put the thought from her as she had put another, but it
returned with pertinacity, and each time larger than before, until the fear
filled all her mind and made her wild and desperate, under the conviction
of a sudden, awful life-quake launched against her existence to shatter all
her new joy and dash the brimming cup of love from her lips.
Hours passed, and she grew somewhat faint and hollow every way--in head and
heart and stomach. Her eyes ached, her brains were worn out with thinking;
she felt old, and her body was heavy and energy dead. The world changed,
too. The gorse looked strange as the sun went round, the lark sang no more,
the wind blew coldly, and the sea's gold was darkened by a rack of flying
clouds whose shadows fell purple and gray upon the waters.
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