A great tenderness transported him, a great melting. He put his arm round her waist, and made as if to pull her close. She drew back from him with a shudder. It was only for a moment--the next she yielded. But he had seen her reluctance, felt the shiver of repulsion go through her limbs. He rose, and pushed back his chair. "I'm sorry," he said in a low thick voice--"I'm sorry I interrupted your--crying." Then he went out, and gave Handshut a week's notice. § 18. Rose was intensely relieved. She felt that at last and for ever the tormenting mystery would have gone from her life. Once Handshut was away, she told herself, she would slip back into the old groove--a little soberer and softer perhaps, but definitely free of that Reality which had been so terribly different from its toy-counterfeit. Once Handshut was gone, her heart would not pursue him. It was his continual presence that tormented. True, he never sought her out, or persecuted her, or even spoke to her without her speaking first--he only looked in at the window.... But a woman soon learns what it means to have a man's face between her and the simplicities of life in her garden, between her and the divinities of the stars and moon. Rose did not find in her love a sweetness to justify the bitterness of its circumstances. The fact that it had been awakened by a man who was her inferior in the social-agricultural scale, who could give her nothing of the material prosperity she so greatly prized, instead of inspiring her with its beauty, merely convinced her of its folly. She saw herself a woman crazed, obsessed, bewitched, and she looked eagerly forward to the day when the spell should be removed and she should go back chastened to the common, comfortable things of life. But meantime a strange restlessness consumed her, tinctured by a horrible boldness. There were moments when she no longer was afraid of Handshut, when she felt herself impelled to seek him out, and make the most of the short time they had together. There could be no danger, for he was going so soon ... so few more words, so few more glances.... Thus her mind worked. She was generally able to control these impulses, but as the days slipped by they grew too strong for her untrained resistance. She felt that she must make the most of her chances because they were so limited--before he went for ever she must have one more memory of his voice, his look--his touch ... oh, no! her thoughts had carried her further than she had intended.