In this matter of the Trenchards he saw only too plainly, everyone’s point of view; even with Aunt Aggie he saw that she was an old disappointed woman who disliked change and loved power so long as she need not struggle for it. Mrs. Trenchard he did not understand, because he was afraid of her. His fear of her had grown and grown and grown, and in that fear was fascination, hatred, and admiration. He felt now quite definitely that he was beaten by her. He had felt that, after she had taken no notice whatever of his public scene with Aunt Aggie. She would now, he believed, take no notice of anything. He knew also, now, of her hold over Katherine. He must stay with Katherine because he loved her. Therefore he must submit to Mrs. Trenchard ... it was all quite simple.—Meanwhile to submit to Mrs. Trenchard meant, he knew, to such a character as his, extinction. He knew. Oh!... better than anyone else in the world—the kind of creature that, under her influence, he would become. He saw the others under her influence, the men and women of the village, the very chickens and pigs in the neighbouring farms. He knew what he had been under his mother, he knew what he had been under Anna, he knew what now he would be under Mrs. Trenchard. Well, extinction was a simple thing enough if you made up your mind to it—why struggle any further? But day and night, increasingly, as the weeks passed, he was being urged to escape. All this summer, Anna, no longer a suggestion, no longer a memory, but now a vital, bodily presence, was urging him. Her power over him was not in the least because he was still in love with her—he loved only Katherine in all the world—but because of the damnable common-sense of what she said. What she said was this: “Here you are amongst all these funny people. You are too much in the middle of them to see it plainly for yourself, but I’m a ghost and can see everything quite clearly; I know you—better than you know yourself. This Mrs. Trenchard is determined never to let her daughter go. You say that you love this young woman, although what you can see in her stupid English solidity I can’t imagine. However, you were always a fool.... All the same, if you love her it’s for _her_ sake that you must escape. You know the kind of creature you’re going to be if you stay. What does she want with such a man? When she wakes up, about a week after marriage, and finds you under the thumb of her mother, what will happen to her love? She may continue to love you—English women are so stupid—but she’ll certainly despise you. Come back to Russia. It isn’t that I want you, or will take you back into my life, but she’ll find out what you’re worth then. If she really loves you she’ll have to come after you. _Then_ you’ll have broken with the family and will be free. Run away, I tell you. It’s the only thing to do.”