THE LIGHTHOUSE

them in the hall last night. She would start at once.
She got up quickly, before Mr. Ramsay turned.

She fetched herself a chair. She pitched her
easel with her precise old maidish movements on
the edge of the lawn, not too close to Mr.
Carmichael, but close enough for his protection.
Yes, it must have been precisely here that she
had stood ten years ago. There was the wall;
the hedge; the tree. The question was of some
relation between those masses. She had borne it
in her mind all these years. It seemed as if the
solution had come to her: she knew now what
she wanted to do.

But with Mr. Ramsay bearing down on her,
she could do nothing. Every time he approached
—he was walking up and down the terrace—ruin
approached, chaos approached. She could not
paint. She stooped, she turned; she took up this
rag; she squeezed that tube. But all she did was
to ward him off a moment. He made it impossible
for her to do anything. For if she gave him the
least chance, if he saw her disengaged a moment,
looking his way a moment, he would be on her,
saying, as he had said last night, " You find us
much changed." Last night he had got up and
stopped before her, and said that. Dumb and
staring though they had all sat, the six children
whom they used to call after the Kings and Queens

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