Left to herself for the evening
she sat a while under the lamp, her hands empty, her usual
avocations unheeded. Then she rose and moved about the room, and
from one room to another, preferring the places where the vague
lamplight expired. She was restless and even agitated; at moments
she trembled a little. The importance of what had happened was out
of proportion to its appearance; there had really been a change in her
life. What it would bring with it was as yet extremely indefinite; but
Isabel was in a situation that gave a value to any change. She had a
desire to leave the past behind her and, as she said to herself, to
begin afresh. This desire indeed was not a birth of the present
occasion; it was as familiar as the sound of the rain upon the
window and it had led to her beginning afresh a great many times.
She closed her eyes as she sat in one of the dusky corners of the
quiet parlour; but it was not with a desire for dozing
forgetfulness. It was on the contrary because she felt too wide-eyed
and wished to check the sense of seeing too many things at once. Her
imagination was by habit ridiculously active; when the door was not
open it jumped out of the window.
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