As Stephen read she went white to the lips, and Mary sprang up. ‘What’s that letter you’re reading?’ ‘It’s from Lady Massey. It’s about . . . it’s about . . .’ Her voice failed. ‘Show it to me,’ persisted Mary. Stephen shook her head: ‘No—I’d rather not.’ Then Mary asked: ‘Is it about our visit?’ Stephen nodded: ‘We’re not going to spend Christmas at Branscombe. Darling, it’s all right—don’t look like that . . .’ ‘But I want to know why we’re not going to Branscombe.’ And Mary reached out and snatched the letter. She read it through to the very last word, then she sat down abruptly and burst out crying. She cried with the long, doleful sobs of a child whom some one has struck without rhyme or reason: ‘Oh . . . and I thought they were fond of us . . .’ she sobbed, ‘I thought that perhaps . . . they understood, Stephen.’ Then it seemed to Stephen that all the pain that had so far been thrust upon her by existence, was as nothing to the unendurable pain which she must now bear to hear that sobbing, to see Mary thus wounded and utterly crushed, thus shamed and humbled for the sake of her love, thus bereft of all dignity and protection. She felt strangely helpless: ‘Don’t—don’t,’ she implored; while tears of pity blurred her own eyes and went trickling slowly down her scarred face. She had lost for the moment all sense of proportion, of perspective, seeing in a vain, tactless woman a kind of gigantic destroying angel; a kind of scourge laid upon her and Mary. Surely never before had Lady Massey loomed so large as she did in that hour to Stephen. Mary’s sobs gradually died away. She lay back in her chair, a small, desolate figure, catching her breath from time to time, until Stephen went to her and found her hand which she stroked with cold and trembling fingers—but she could not find words of consolation. 5 That night Stephen took the girl roughly in her arms. ‘I love you—I love you so much . . .’ she stammered; and she kissed Mary many times on the mouth, but cruelly so that her kisses were pain—the pain in her heart leapt out through her lips: ‘God! It’s too terrible to love like this—it’s hell—there are times when I can’t endure it!’ She was in the grip of strong nervous excitation; nothing seemed able any more to appease her. She seemed to be striving to obliterate, not only herself, but the whole hostile world through some strange and agonized merging with Mary. It was terrible indeed, very like unto death, and it left them both completely exhausted. The world had achieved its first real victory. CHAPTER 47 1