The widow, whose only child Lawrence was, lived in a small top flat near the Boyds in North Kelvinside. On her way there, therefore, Joanna had to cross the high bridge which for her would always be associated with Bob Ranken, and then she had to pass the steps where four years ago she and Bob had parted.

When she came to the bridge, to her surprise a slight trembling seized her. Far behind and done with was that experience, yet the peculiar misery of it still remained quick, and as it were ambushed to spring out hurtfully upon her at the touch of memory. Why was it? Why was it that there was no such quality of torture – of canker almost – in her memories, so much more tragic, of Mario?

For a moment she leaned on the parapet where she and Bob had once stood, calling themselves lovers: and in that moment, more clearly than by spoken word, the truth of that past emotion was made known to her.

How she had lied to herself and to Bob! How sick she had been with self-love! Why, she had merely invented him as a lover to meet her need; had cared only for her own invention, never a scrap for the living man she had used therefor. Now she was open-eyed and ashamed. Bob had been more honest than she. He had at least been struggling amid the bewilderment of his blood towards a truthful attitude. If only he could have pierced clean through all her pretences, they might have emerged together, achieving real contact. As it was, she was thankful for the bitter and humiliating knowledge that had come to her at length, and she was grateful to Bob for his part in it. Now that she knew, the venom was gone from the memory. For her there would be no decking of altars to sweet first love. The dead branch could be ruthlessly lopped off.

And she did not regret. Even her falseness, she did not regret. No!

She gazed down on the full, brown February flood. The last pieces of ice were breaking from the banks, and being jostled in mid-current among torn branches of trees. Although a spring thaw had set in, many of the rhododendron bushes were still covered with hoar-frost. On some bushes the folded leaves hung down like the lop ears of a hare; on others they were cocked up in tufts like the feathers of a field-marshal’s hat. Everywhere the evergreen bushes flourished, hardy and rank, and between them rushed the swollen, headlong water.