She knew that in a measure she owed this supreme reconciliation to George Tanqueray. Her genius was virile. He could not give it anything, nor could it have taken anything he gave. He was passive to her vision and humble, on his knees, as he always had been, before a kindred immortality. What he did for her was to see her idea as she saw it, but so that through his eyes she saw steadily and continuously its power and perfection. She was aware that in the last five years she had grown dependent on him for that. For five years he had lifted her out of the abyss when she had found herself falling. Through all the surgings and tossings that had beset her he had kept her from sinking into the trough of the wave. Never once had he let go his hold till he had seen her riding gaily on the luminous crest. His presence filled her with a deep and strong excitement. For two years, in their long separations, she had found that her craving for it was at times unbearable. She knew that when her flame died down and she was in terror of extinction, she had only to send for him to have her fear taken from her. She had only to pick up a book of his, to read a sentence of his, and she would feel herself afire again. Everything about him, his voice, his look, the touch of his hand, had this penetrating, life-giving quality. Three weeks passed and Tanqueray was still staying in his inn at Chagford. In the mornings they worked, he on his book and she on hers. She saw him every afternoon or evening. Sometimes they took long walks together over the moors. Sometimes they wandered in the deep lanes. Sometimes, in rainy weather, they sat indoors, talking. In the last five years Tanqueray (who never used to show his work) had brought all his manuscripts for her to read. He brought them now. Sometimes she read to him what she had written. Sometimes he read to her. Sometimes he left his manuscript with her and took hers away with him. They discussed every doubtful point together, they advised each other and consulted. Sometimes they talked of other things. She was aware that the flame he kindled leaned to him, drawn by his flame. She kept it high. She wanted him to see how divine it was, and how between him and her there could be no question of passion that was not incorruptible, a fiery intellectual thing. But every day Tanqueray walked up from the village to the farm. She looked on his coming as the settled, natural thing. Brodrick continued to assure her that the children were happy without her, and that he was very comfortable with Gertrude; and Tanqueray reiterated that it was all right, all perfectly right. One day he arrived earlier than usual, about eleven o'clock. He proposed that they should walk together over the moor to Post Bridge, lunch at the inn there and walk back. Distance was nothing to them.