The Woman Who Didn't
Originally titled Consumation, retitled by John Lane for his Keynote series as a response to Grant Allen's The Woman Who Did.
Approx. 23,737 words.
omparably graceful, with a turn of the shoulder and a pose of the neck, that, as my eye caught it, seemed to arrest my very pulses.
She was wearing no hat, and the stray gleams of sunlight coming at intervals under the awning glittered on the dark hair, making it a confusion of gilt and ebony.
I paused a second or two to get rid of the look of triumphant pleasure I felt must be on my face, and then, summoning the most dejected expression I could, I walked hastily up towards her with a sort of contrite, desperately anxious air.
She continued to read till I was close beside her chair. I stopped and looked down upon her, and she glanced up at me.
Such a look came upon me from under the lids!
Sabres unsheathed, knives in the sunlight, and fires burnt blue, were none of them in it with that look, and as she transferred her eyes immediately to the book again, I almost expected to see the page shrivel under them. I felt rather shrivelled.
'Will you ever forgive me for last n