Virginia Woolf: Night and Day

29. CHAPTER XXIX (continued)

Katharine hesitated. She was confused, agitated, physically tired, and had already to reckon with the violent feeling of dislike aroused by her aunt which still vibrated through all the rest of her feelings. She sank into a chair and dropped her flowers upon her lap.

"She charmed me," Rodney continued. "I thought I loved her. But that's a thing of the past. It's all over, Katharine. It was a dream--an hallucination. We were both equally to blame, but no harm's done if you believe how truly I care for you. Say you believe me!"

He stood over her, as if in readiness to seize the first sign of her assent. Precisely at that moment, owing, perhaps, to her vicissitudes of feeling, all sense of love left her, as in a moment a mist lifts from the earth. And when the mist departed a skeleton world and blankness alone remained--a terrible prospect for the eyes of the living to behold. He saw the look of terror in her face, and without understanding its origin, took her hand in his. With the sense of companionship returned a desire, like that of a child for shelter, to accept what he had to offer her--and at that moment it seemed that he offered her the only thing that could make it tolerable to live. She let him press his lips to her cheek, and leant her head upon his arm. It was the moment of his triumph. It was the only moment in which she belonged to him and was dependent upon his protection.

"Yes, yes, yes," he murmured, "you accept me, Katharine. You love me."

For a moment she remained silent. He then heard her murmur:

"Cassandra loves you more than I do."

"Cassandra?" he whispered.

"She loves you," Katharine repeated. She raised herself and repeated the sentence yet a third time. "She loves you."