Page:Neith Boyce--The bond.djvu/392

390 she went shivering to her bed, but she did not sleep. He was there, under the same roof with her, but a freezing terror lay between them—the terror of the end of love, of ugliness where there had been beauty, of death where there had been life. Was it possible that such a failure could be theirs? Was this thing real, or was it a spectre, a shadow, that they might still escape from? She did not know … Whose was the fault? Hers directly, she knew. How prodigal they had both been of the real treasure of their lives, how careless of the precious thing they held! But who could have guessed that it was fragile? How had it been possible to think that what held them together needed cherishing, needed care? Had either of them really conceived before that that bond could be broken? Had either of them imagined such bankruptcy?

And now it was facing them. She knew instinctively that this was the real test of their relation. She knew that Basil's fault could not have ruined the scheme of their life together; she knew that hers could. She saw herself as the key-stone of the structure; she saw suddenly that there was, that there must be a structure, and that it must depend upon her. All the laboriousness of life, the grey aspect of duty, the necessity for infinite, incessant exertion of the will, for self-control, for self-sacrifice—all the puritan