He left her alone, and returned to his own brooding.

`Is it Baxter that upsets you?' he asked at length.

`I have been vile to him!' she said.

`I've said many a time you haven't treated him well,' he replied.

And there was a hostility between them. Each pursued his own train of thought.

`I've treated him -- no, I've treated him badly,' she said. `And now you treat me badly. It serves me right.'

`How do I treat you badly?' he said.

`It serves me right,' she repeated. `I never considered him worth having, and now you don't consider me. But it serves me right. He loved me a thousand times better than you ever did.'

`He didn't!' protested Paul.

`He did! At any rate, he did respect me, and that's what you don't do.'

`It looked as if he respected you!' he said.

`He did! And I made him horrid -- I know I did! You've taught me that. And he loved me a thousand times better than ever you do.'

`All right,' said Paul.

He only wanted to be left alone now. He had his own trouble, which was almost too much to bear. Clara only tormented him and made him tired. He was not sorry when he left her.

She went on the first opportunity to Sheffield to see her husband. The meeting was not a success. But she left him roses and fruit and money. She wanted to make restitution. It was not that she loved him. As she looked at him lying there her heart did not warm with love. Only she wanted to humble herself to him, to kneel before him. She wanted now to be self-sacrificial. After all, she had failed to make Morel really love her. She was morally frightened. She wanted to do penance. So she kneeled to Dawes, and it gave him a subtle pleasure. But the distance between them was still very great -- too great. It frightened the man. It almost pleased the woman. She liked to feel she was serving him across an insuperable distance. She was proud now.

Morel went to see Dawes once or twice. There was a sort of friendship between the two men, who were all the while deadly rivals. But they never mentioned the woman who was between them.

Mrs Morel got gradually worse. At first they used to carry her downstairs, sometimes even into the garden. She sat propped in her chair, smiling, and so pretty. The gold wedding-ring shone on her white hand; her hair was carefully brushed. And she watched the tangled sunflowers dying, the chrysanthemums coming out, and the dahlias.

Paul and she were afraid of each other. He knew, and she knew, that she was dying. But they kept up a pretence of cheerfulness. Every morning, when he got up, he went into her room in his pyjamas.

`Did you sleep, my dear?' he asked.

`Yes,' she answered.

`Not very well?'