As at a great distance, far far away in the depths of childhood, she heard her mother sobbing in the dark. Almost her only recollection of her mother was being waked in the night by that passionate sobbing. The remembrance of her father came next, sordid, good-humoured, mercenary, and she shuddered. No wonder her mother had cried so bitterly! Close behind it followed the sensitive, sensual face of the musician who had offered to train her. And then, sudden and overwhelming, blotting out everything else, came the beautiful young lover whom she had cast forth from her heart with passion a year ago. All the agony and despair which she had undergone then surged back upon her, seemed to rush past her to join forces with the cold desolation lingering in the empty room. Annette hid her face in her hands. She had put it all behind her. She had outlived it. But the sudden remembrance of it shook her like a leaf. In that grim procession Dick came last--poor, poor Dick! He had not been wicked, but he had done wicked things. He had betrayed and broken faith. He had made as much desolation and anguish as if he had been hard-hearted. Oh! why did women love men? Why did they trust them? Annette stood a long time with her face in her hands. Then she went out and closed the door behind her. The sun was shining bravely, and she longed to get out of this death-shadowed house into the warm, living sunshine. She went back to the drawing-room, her quiet step echoing loudly down the passage, and looked out of the long window. But the outlook was not calculated to lessen her oppression. Close at hand, as she knew, were gracious expanses of sea and sky and gleaming river. But a stone wall surrounded the house, and on the top of it a tall wooden fence had been erected, so high that from the ground floor you could not look over it. This wooden fence came up close to the house on every side, so close that there was only just room for the thin firs and a walnut tree to grow within the narrow enclosure, their branches touching the windows. Annette did not know that the wall and the fence and the trees were there to protect the house from the east wind, which in winter swept with arctic ferocity from the sea.