This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1928 edition. Excerpt: ...rested. Her body felt at times intolerably heavy and then tanta-lizingly light. She halted presently to seize a fence post and hold herself upright, but she did not falter in her ultimate intention. She would go and sit on Lucien's doorstep, and when he came she would ask him whether he were engaged to Marian or meant to be engaged to Marian. If he said yes, she would die, simply die, there and then. Guiding herself partly by sight, but more by feeling, she reached Lucien's gate at last. Beside low wooden posts which supported the gate, the ancient hedge had been trimmed into tall post-like shapes. She felt the tips of the branches and smelled the pleasant bitter odor. Sighing, she stood for a moment holding to the branches; she had, she believed, sufficient strength to get to the porch, but no farther. She stepped from the brick walk to the grass at the side, not daring to trust the slippery surface. It was not so far from the gate to Lucien's porch as it was from the Young gate to the terrace, but the journey seemed interminable. She paused again and yet again, now waiting for a flash of lightning to show her the porch-steps so that she might not stumble upon them. Once she stepped into a flower-bed and filled her slipper with mud. 'The limit ' she muttered to herself. 'The absolute limit ' In the end she did stumble and fall on the porch-steps. She turned her body and sat down, gasping. Within both body and mind was a great emptiness. She half sat, half lay on the steps until she recovered enough strength to sit up. The flashes, instead of lessening in intensity, were brightening, and the thunder was rolling more heavily. The thunder now proceeded, not from the east toward which the storm had departed, but from the west, from whence it had...