Twisting and turning in her flight, with wild eyes that fearfully
retained the image of that small man gathering himself to spring,
Zuleika found herself suddenly where she could no further go.
She was in that grim ravine by which you approach New College. At sight
of the great shut gate before her, she halted, and swerved to the wall.
She set her brow and the palms of her hands against the cold stones. She
threw back her head, and beat the stones with her fists.
It was not only what she had seen, it was what she had barely saved
herself from seeing, and what she had not quite saved herself from
hearing, that she strove so piteously to forget. She was sorrier for
herself, angrier, than she had been last night when the Duke laid hands
on her. Why should every day have a horrible ending? Last night she
had avenged herself. To-night’s outrage was all the more foul and mean
because of its certain immunity. And the fact that she had in some
measure brought it on herself did but whip her rage. What a fool she
had been to taunt the man! Yet no, how could she have foreseen that he
would--do THAT? How could she have guessed that he, who had not dared
seemly death for her in the gentle river, would dare--THAT?
She shuddered the more as she now remembered that this very day, in that
very house, she had invited for her very self a similar fate. What if
the Duke had taken her word? Strange! she wouldn’t have flinched then.
She had felt no horror at the notion of such a death. And thus she now
saw Noaks’ conduct in a new light--saw that he had but wished to prove
his love, not at all to affront her. This understanding quickly steadied
her nerves. She did not need now to forget what she had seen; and, not
needing to forget it--thus are our brains fashioned--she was able to
forget it.
But by removal of one load her soul was but bared for a more grievous
other. Her memory harked back to what had preceded the crisis. She
recalled those moments of doomed rapture in which her heart had soared
up to the apocalyptic window--recalled how, all the while she was
speaking to the man there, she had been chafed by the inadequacy of
language. Oh, how much more she had meant than she could express! Oh,
the ecstasy of that self-surrender! And the brevity of it! the sudden
odious awakening! Thrice in this Oxford she had been duped. Thrice all
that was fine and sweet in her had leapt forth, only to be scourged back
into hiding. Poor heart inhibited! She gazed about her. The stone alley
she had come into, the terrible shut gate, were for her a visible symbol
of the destiny she had to put up with. Wringing her hands, she hastened
along the way she had come. She vowed she would never again set foot in
Oxford. She wished herself out of the hateful little city to-night. She
even wished herself dead.
She deserved to suffer, you say? Maybe. I merely state that she did
suffer.
Emerging into Catherine Street, she knew whereabouts she was, and made
straight for Judas, turning away her eyes as she skirted the Broad, that
place of mocked hopes and shattered ideals.
Coming into Judas Street, she remembered the scene of yesterday--the
happy man with her, the noise of the vast happy crowd. She suffered in
a worse form what she had suffered in the gallery of the Hall. For
now--did I not say she was not without imagination?--her self-pity was
sharpened by remorse for the hundreds of homes robbed. She realised the
truth of what the poor Duke had once said to her: she was a danger in
the world... Aye, and all the more dire now. What if the youth of all
Europe were moved by Oxford’s example? That was a horribly possible
thing. It must be reckoned with. It must be averted. She must not show
herself to men. She must find some hiding-place, and there abide. Were
this a hardship? she asked herself. Was she not sickened for ever of
men’s homage? And was it not clear now that the absorbing need in her
soul, the need to love, would never--except for a brief while, now and
then, and by an unfortunate misunderstanding--be fulfilled?
So long ago that you may not remember, I compared her favourably with
the shepherdess Marcella, and pleaded her capacity for passion as an
excuse for her remaining at large. I hope you will now, despite your
rather evident animus against her, set this to her credit: that she did,
so soon as she realised the hopelessness of her case, make just that
decision which I blamed Marcella for not making at the outset. It was as
she stood on the Warden’s door-step that she decided to take the veil.
With something of a conventual hush in her voice, she said to the
butler, “Please tell my maid that we are leaving by a very early train
to-morrow, and that she must pack my things to-night.”
“Very well, Miss,” said the butler. “The Warden,” he added, “is in the
study, Miss, and was asking for you.”
She could face her grandfather without a tremour--now. She would hear
meekly whatever reproaches he might have for her, but their sting was
already drawn by the surprise she had in store for him.