"
"I didn't understand, Steven."
"Well, well. There's no need to go back on that now. It's done,
Gwenda."
"Yes. And I did it. I wouldn't have done it if I'd known what it
meant. I didn't think it would have been like this."
"Like what?"
Rowcliffe's smile that had been reminiscent was now vague and
obscurely speculative.
"I ought to have let you go when you wanted to," she said.
Rowcliffe looked down at the table. She sat leaning sideways against
it; one thin arm was stretched out on it. The hand gripped the paper
weight that he had pushed away. It was this hand, so tense and yet so
helpless, that he was looking at. He laid his own over it gently. Its
grip slackened then. It lay lax under the sheltering hand.
"Don't worry about that, my dear," he said. "It's been all right----"
"It hasn't. It hasn't."
Rowcliffe's nerves winced before her fierce intensity. He withdrew his
sheltering hand.
"Just at first," she said, "it was all right. But you see--it's broken
down. You said it would."
"You mustn't keep on bothering about what I said."
"It isn't what you said. It's what is. It's this place. We're all tied
up together in it, tight. We can't get away from each other. It isn't
as if I could leave. I'm stuck here with Papa."
"My dear Gwenda, did I ever say you ought to leave?"
"No. You said _you_ ought. It's the same thing."
"It isn't. And I don't say it now. What is the earthly use of going
back on things? That's what makes you ill.
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