Before she left she wrote to her aunt and to her father, a joint letter. She was amazed at her own curtness when she read the letter over; it seemed as though all the softness and affection had gone out of her. Baldly, reticently she told her family what had happened. She would say nothing that was disloyal to Stephen; it was just “a mistake,” and they had agreed to part “at any rate for a time.” She begged that neither Lawrence nor Miss Arden would follow her to Torquay; she wanted to be alone, but when she returned to London she would come to see them.

She thought, How strange that I should write like this to my people! Only a year ago I could not have done it. I thought that I adored them. Was I pretending then, or have I changed?

Their answers reached her at Torquay. A wail ran through Miss Arden’s six-paged letter, a wail against the brutality and selfishness of men, a wail for her niece’s unhappiness. Without hearing the facts she ranged herself on Elizabeth’s side. Men were beasts; men cared only for themselves; men were everything that was loathsome. Elizabeth must come home, and “forget all about it.” Elizabeth must surely want her aunt at such a time. She at least understood and sympathised.

Elizabeth read it through slowly, dispassionately. Yes, Aunt was being kind, but it was too late. She was left far behind; she belonged to the past, that other world. She didn’t understand. The letter went on to the fire, not in anger or impatience, but in sadness.

Lawrence began, My dear little girl. That jarred. Lawrence took her parting from Stephen as a personal insult to himself. He was astonished, grieved; he was sure he did not know what his little girl was thinking about. He had approved Stephen as a husband for her; she must return to Stephen at once. Really, he thought she had taken leave of her senses.

That letter followed Miss Arden’s into the fire. They couldn’t understand; they didn’t even see how much they were to blame.

Torquay soothed her. She, who had never been by herself before, now gloried in her freedom. Stephen wrote briefly that he was going abroad for a time, but that letters addressed to his agent would find him. Elizabeth felt that she could breathe more freely now that there was no fear of meeting her husband.

Her landlady was sometimes rather trying. She would come up to Elizabeth’s sitting-room on some pretext or other, and would stand there by the door, her hands under her apron, indulging in reminiscence. Mostly it was, Fancy now! To think of Mr. Stephen—I should say Ramsay—being grown up and married, as you might say.

Elizabeth smiled always, and answered,

“It must seem strange.”