Now her whole impulse was that Philip must at all costs be protected and defended, and, for the first time, this afternoon, sitting there alone with the world all hers, she realised how her feeling for him had changed. When she had first known him she had fallen in love with him because she had thought him the strongest, most adventurous, most fearless of mortal souls. Now—she knew that he was weak, afraid of himself, unbalanced, a prey to moods, impulses, terrors—and with that knowledge of him her love had grown, had flung its wide arm about him, had caught him to her heart with a fierce protection that the attraction for his strength had never given her. With her new knowledge of him came also her direct antagonism with that other woman. She knew that what Philip had said was true, that her curiosity had increased for them both the live actuality of that figure. Katherine had always been afraid of cynical people, who must, always, she felt, despise her for the simplicity of her beliefs, the confidence of her trust. She remembered a woman who had, at one time, been a close friend of Aunt Aggie’s, a sharp, masculine woman with pincenez, who, when Katherine had said anything, had looked at her sharply through her glasses, laughed as though she were ringing a coin to see whether it were good metal, and said: ‘Do you think so?’ Katherine had hated her and been always helpless before her, clumsy, awkward and tongue-tied. Now it was a woman of that kind whom she was called out to challenge. Her thought in church yesterday was with her now more strongly than ever. “How she would despise me if she knew me!...” and then, “what a power she must have if she can come back like this into Philip’s life.” And yet not such a power! Always before him was that world where he was not: his fancy, running before him, cried to him: “Yes. There! There! was happiness,” or “In such a fashion happiness will come to you”—as though the only end of life was happiness, the security of the ideal moment. Yes, Katherine knew why Anna had laughed at Philip. Her thoughts turned back again then to his mad idea of their escape to London, and, suddenly, as though some woman were with her whom she had never seen before, some voice within her cried: “Ah! I wish he’d make me go! simply take me prisoner, force me by brutal strength, leave me no will nor power.” Her imagination, excited, almost breathless, began to play round this. She saw his return, heard him ask her whether she would go with him, heard her answer that she would not, heard him say: “But you are in my power now. I have arranged everything. Whether you like it or not we go....” She would protest, but in her surrender, triumphant at heart, she would see her utter defeat of that other woman, whose baffled ghost might whistle across the dark moor back to its own country to find other humours for its decision.