“I had a love affair. Do you hear me? I committed adultery. Get out! Even Christ don’t forgive that. Do you see that Church over there?” She jumped away from him and went to the window. “My husband’s a good man. If he came to New York, that’s likely where he’d stop ... in that Parish house. If he passed me in the street, he’d turn his face.” The room was between them. They, facing each other, held. Fanny’s voice changed. It had been harsh and high. It was low. “What do you want? Can’t you see that I’m dead? What do you want? Aren’t there plenty of women for the rest of your life? Why me? Let me die.” He stood still. “What can I give you? Haven’t I tried to give to my husband ... to Edith? They’ve taken all. I’ve failed. There’s something the matter with me.” He stood. They were silent. Her voice was quiet. “I don’t resist you. Do you hear? I don’t deserve to. I am dead. I am nothing. You don’t want that. I don’t resist you. You’ll take your hat and you’ll go....” He held his silence, and she prayed in it. She saw the world all One: and of it, like a throbbing heart, like a high radiant head, she saw that there was God. But she said again: “There’s something the matter with me.” Johns came to her: he stood above her, holding her two hands. “Come beside me, Fanny.” The tears ran silent down her cheeks.--What does it mean? “Come beside me. O close. Lie close with me, Fanny.” She felt his arms lifting her like a leaf in a warm wind ... laying her down. She felt his hands and his mouth that fell like a warm rain on her parching flesh. She shut her eyes. * * * * * ... So that day they had walked with Autumn burning all about them. Silently. She, walking through the years with feet at last aware: he, mute unconscious, reckless of pasts, praying that as she walked beside him ... this strange deep lovely creature who had become his life ... she should not walk away. The day was done. They sat in their room at the Inn, with Night. They felt the Night. It was clear and brittle like a violin: it gave forth notes, sharp, penetrable, woody: it wove its voices into silken strands. It was a dark and glowing violin. The room in which they sat was still of the past of the Inn which had been a Mansion. The ceiling came low: the beds were canopied: chairs, lowboy, brass hearthpieces, rag rug over the black softwood floor, drew into a tight repressed luxuriance, into a single mood, strong, curbed, sufficient, that was New England: ancient New England pregnant of bursting strengths. Here they sat, thrust close upon each other by the Night and by the moodpent room. He wanted to take her hand, he did not dare. His eyes searched her retiscence. “It was a great day, Fanny. We must have walked twenty miles.” She saw the miles ... miles of trees flaring against their false defeat.--‘We move skyward! Come, Winter, strip us ... still do we move skyward!’ She saw the miles: hours of her small feet beating immortal earth.