She thought of three different scenes; she thought of Mary sitting upright and saying, "I'm in love--I'm in love"; she thought of Rodney losing his self-consciousness among the dead leaves, and speaking with the abandonment of a child; she thought of Denham leaning upon the stone parapet and talking to the distant sky, so that she thought him mad.

Her mind, passing from Mary to Denham, from William to Cassandra, and from Denham to herself--if, as she rather doubted, Denham's state of mind was connected with herself--seemed to be tracing out the lines of some symmetrical pattern, some arrangement of life, which invested, if not herself, at least the others, not only with interest, but with a kind of tragic beauty.

She had a fantastic picture of them upholding splendid palaces upon their bent backs.

They were the lantern-bearers, whose lights, scattered among the crowd, wove a pattern, dissolving, joining, meeting again in combination.

Half forming such conceptions as these in her rapid walk along the dreary streets of South Kensington, she determined that, whatever else might be obscure, she must further the objects of Mary, Denham, William, and Cassandra.