TIME PASSESreason, and mounted one on top of another, andlunged and plunged in the darkness or the daylight(for night and day, month and year ran shapelesslytogether) in idiot games, until it seemed as if theuniverse were battling and tumbling, in brute con-fusion and wanton lust aimlessly by itself.

In spring the garden urns, casually filled withwind-blown plants, were gay as ever. Violets cameand daffodils. But the stillness and the brightness ofthe day were as strange as the chaos and tumult ofnight, with the trees standing there, and the flowersstanding there, looking before them, looking up, yetbeholding nothing, eyeless, and so terrible.VIII

Thinking no harm, for the family would not come,never again, some said, and the house would be soldat Michaelmas perhaps, Mrs. McNab stooped andpicked a bunch of flowers to take home with her.She laid them on the table while she dusted. Shewas fond of flowers. It was a pity to let them waste.Suppose the house were sold (she stood armsakimbo in front of the looking-glass) it would wantseeing to—it would. There it had stood all theseyears without a soul in it. The books and thingswere mouldy, for, what with the war and help being203
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