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rebelled against him, she was a part of him. How could she leave him? How can one leave oneself? And she had nobody to go to. Marty was dead. She could not go back to the people she had come from, the people who were round her now in this street, because of everything that had happened to her in the last twelve years. She did not mean the sexual things, for she knew, as all women know, that these are of the slightest importance. She meant the things that had made her public and exalted. As she walked along she looked up at the big red building as one who saw the towers of a forbidden city, obscure, mediocre, sacred.
    It was guarded at all its three doors by policemen. That made her remember something. Mr Justice Sandbury had lunched at Clussingford on Sunday and had taken her a little walk in the afternoon to see the famous white cattle at the home farm. She nearly always liked judges: as a class they were far preferable to retired prime ministers, who were inclined to pinch. This one was specially nice, quite elderly with silver hair and a voice at once rich and thin, like a bell of pure metal worn down by time to paper-thickness; and he had that old-fashioned way of treating a woman as if she were a flower in a vase, which is very pleasant for a little while, though tiresome if it goes on too long, since one is not a flower in a vase. He had told her the old man’s story of the stage of the past: of Henry Irving who, with his queer legs that looked like long legs seen through a refracting depth of water, and the ragged plume of stuttered, booming speech that he crazily held between his clenched teeth, somehow made a comprehensive hieroglyphic that expressed all noble variations of romantic passion; of Ellen Terry, who stands for ever in old men’s memories in a long white gown holding out paper flowers that have indeed been for remembrance, her face crisped with plaintiveness like a clear pool crisped by the wind; of Adelaide Neilson, who was beautiful, who died young, and in gaiety, dressed in her best, walking on Sunday in a sunny park in Paris with some splendid lover. From conflicting timbres in his voice she could guess that he himself had longed to step on to that stage, but that he was refraining from telling her so lest he should have to explain that he had not done so because in those days it was considered social suicide for a man of his class to become an actor. That made her smile, it was so delicate and so foolish, for of course a gentleman ought not to go on the stage. In the manner of one counting up what is not gain but merely compensation, the nice old man went on to tell her wistfully that of course there was a great deal of drama in his own profession, and to describe some curious cases in which he had taken part as counsel or judge. She had listened very attentively, partly to help him in his task of persuading himself that he had had as interesting a life as he possibly could have had, and partly because she loved to hear anything about real people, so long as it was true and not publicity. So when he said goodbye he had told her, pleased with her listening, that on Monday he would be trying the Assizes at Packbury, and that if she came in to the court for an hour on the way back he would be delighted to see her.
    That would be a good thing to do. For one thing she would like to see the old man again. He was so very well-bred; one felt he would place the pleasantest interpretation on everything that was said or done so that life would be nice all round him. One could not imagine him putting a woman in a humiliating position. And it would keep her mind busy watching the trials, though she hoped everybody would be acquitted. She crossed the road and went past the policeman at the main door.
    Inside there was a lobby and a stone staircase, with an ugly iron balustrade and a fat policeman with a blue-black moustache looking down from the landing above. She mounted the steps in a sudden glow of tender,