She must see her, at all costs, she said to herself, in spite of Ellen’s lack of confidence and the bitterness of betrayal. It would be harder to go now, both because of her own clearer vision of things, and because of the fading impulse from Over There which had done so much to sustain her. The glamour had gone out of the enterprise for ever. But she could not afford to wait until Ellen should find both money and opportunity for her visit. At all costs, she must go to Canada. But even as she made her decision she remembered the sea, and shrank from it in her mind as if from an actual presence. It had frightened her even in her morning freshness; in her evening weariness it became a stalking horror. Her passion for size and space, together with her power of visualisation, turned upon her now to her own undoing. The Atlantic rose up against her in its sullen depth and strength, in chain upon chain of endless, rolling mountains. Presently, as it seemed, the advancing terror was in the garden and in the house, and under the waves of her huge vision she saw herself sink and drown.... She came back at last to find herself twisted in her chair, with her eyes fixed upon some half-seen but definitely soothing object. As her mind cleared she found that she was looking through the open larder door, and out through the window beyond which vignetted the privet hedge. She could see the lawn, too, shadowy and mysterious with the evening, and the rosebush, slimmed and thinned to almost elfin proportions. Over the hedge-top there still lingered a segment of silvered, tranquil sky.... Her heart stopped pounding as she looked, and the choking terror which had sprung on her out of the ocean slowly loosed its grip. The peace of the garden reached her even in the house, making an exquisite stillness where the sea had roared and rolled. She sat drinking in the quiet, watching the sky fade and the lawn dim as veil after veil was laid upon them.... And then again she remembered Ellen. She would never be able to get to Ellen if she could not face the sea, and she knew now that she could not face it. There was no deliverance, after all. All that she could do was to sit and wait for Ellen to come, and Ellen might never come.... She sprang to her feet, crying aloud that she was trapped, as Kirkby, down in the garden, was crying that he was trapped. She could neither go nor stay, she said to herself, get to Ellen nor remain here. Life, after all these years of bitterness and despair, could do nothing better for her than to get her into this trap.... With the supreme terror upon her of those who see themselves caught by life she ran to the door, and beheld the bowed figure of Kirkby, dusky and ghost-like in the distance. Leaving the house, as if it was her own self that she left, she went running and stumbling towards him across the gardens. PART III THEIRS I