There was not a breath of wind; the world might have been of carved stone, so motionless was it. He had had her in his arms; her hands had crept round his neck and had pulled his head down until it rested on her breast. He had been on fire—the world had been on fire—and he had poured into her ear, in fierce hurried words, passion such as it seemed to him no man had ever known before. He had told her the old, old arguments; things that seemed to him absolutely new and fresh. Their marriages had been, both of them, absurd. They had been joined, each of them, to persons who did not understand them, people who did not even care to understand them. After all, what were marriage vows? A few words spoken hurriedly when they could not possibly tell whether there was even a chance of their being able to keep them. They were not meant to keep them. They had made their mistake, and now they must pay for it; but it was better to break with those bonds now, to have done with them once and for all, than to go on for ever in hypercritical mockery, pretending what they could not feel, acting a lie before God and man. But now, if they could escape now, away from this stupid country with its stupid conventions, away to some place where they would be happy together for ever until death . . . and so on, and so on; and the leaves and the paths and the dark sky were held together, motionless, by the iron hand of God. And then some one had in a moment interrupted them; some fool from the hotel. Maradick’s fingers itched to be about his throat. “What a close night! Yes, a storm must be coming up. They’d heard very distant thunder; how solemn the sea sounded . . .” and so they had gone into the hotel. The rain had ceased. The streets stretched in dreary wet lines before him, the skies were leaden grey; from some room the discordant jingle of a piano came down to him, a cart bumped past him through the mud and dirt. And then suddenly the tower in the market-place sprung upon him. It was literally that, a definite springing out from all the depths of greyness and squalor behind it to meet him. On shining days, when the sky was very blue and the new smart hotel opposite glittered in all its splendour, the tower put on its most sombre cloak of grey and hid itself. That was no time or place for it when other things could look so brilliant, but now, in the absolutely deserted market-place, when the cobbles glittered in the wet and the windows, like so many stupid eyes, gave back the dead colour of the sky, it took its rightful place. It seemed to be the one thing that mattered, with its square and sturdy strength, its solidity that bid defiance to all the winds and rains of the world. Puddles lay about its feet and grey windy clouds tugged at its head, but it stood confidently resolute, while the red hotel opposite shrunk back, with its tawdry glitter damped and torn and dishevelled.