Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/272

 'Hearth and Home.' She thought of Porlock Weir, and the old inn, and the proud Miss Champion. She thought of the wet moors and the sun coming out over the Severn. She thought of the four stories that had come suddenly and flamed across her sky. They had scorched her body with their intensity, and had left her when they were written weak and shaken but sweetly content. Writing them had been extraordinarily like loving Anthony Jones. It burned you and you suffered, but when it was over you knew happiness. And it was over—Anthony Jones was over. He was as much gone as though he had never been. That last terrific flare of passion that had driven her to pursue him to Winchester had burned out. She pressed her hands to her temples...'Suppose I should marry Mr. Ripley?' it was the hundredth time that day she had had that thought.

She never doubted her witch stories were good. Violently colored things—dark and angry in places, but with a fierce bright pagan joy in them, too. 'The Tale that is Told,' with its theme of demon-lover. The miserable death of the young witch on the dirty straw of the town jail...It was a terrible story; so were they all. In spite of their fantastic trappings they satisfied her as in some way being true to life as she knew and loved it. Their roots were firmly woven in the rich dark soil of humanity, even if their flowering was exotic. The 'Hearth and Home' stories had been rootless, their flowers had been of paper. But what publisher would care for these dark mysteries? Perhaps Mr. Fox would advise her. 'The Whisperer'