During the ten days that had passed since he had surprised her--for a few moments--by giving her the release for which she had asked him, only to impose upon her a much stronger obligation, she had been thinking over his trickery--the word had been forced upon her; she felt quite shocked at its persistent intrusion but that made no difference: the word had come and the word remained with her until she was accustomed to it. But it was not until now that she asked herself the question: “_How could I ever have fancied that I loved the man who could thus juggle with me?_” She knew that what she had told him on that Sunday at Ranelagh was quite true: she had been greatly troubled for some months at the thought that she was guilty of deception--a certain amount of deception--in respect of her engagement to him. The deception of her father and mother had become at last unendurable to her. She began to despise herself for it all and to feel humiliated every time she was by the side of Ernest Clifton when the eyes of people were watching her. She had to act as if he was nothing to her, and this dissimulation had become unendurable, so that she had sought for the opportunity of telling him that he must release her. She thought that she cared for him even then--she thought that the first step apart from him was taken by her when she perceived that he did not believe what she had said to him at that time. She knew that he did not believe that it pained her to deceive her father and mother--she knew that he was thinking “Who is the other man?” and then she was conscious of taking the first step apart from him. But it was not a mere step that she had taken away from him on that evening on the Italian terrace of the Kensington garden when she had recovered from her surprise at his generosity only to discover that he had tricked her--that he had substituted a new bondage for the old from which he had released her--it was not a mere step: she became conscious of the fact that he and she were miles asunder--that she detested him so much that she could scarcely realise that she had ever cared a jot for him. And now---- Well now she was irritated that the thought that she had yet to free herself entirely from him, came upon her shattering with a note of discord her crystal dream of peace.