She felt herself caught up into a whirlpool of conflicting emotions.

The idea of marriage with Roger Trenby seemed even more impossible than ever with the knowledge that in a few days Peter would be there, close beside her with that quiet, comprehending gaze of his, while every nerve in her body would be vibrating at the mere touch of his hand.
In the dusk of her room, against the shadowy background of the blind-drawn windows, she could visualise each line of his face--the level brows and the steady, grey-blue eyes under them--eyes that missed so little and understood so much; the sensitive mouth with those rather tired lines cleft each side of it that deepened when he smiled; the lean cheek-bones and squarish chin.
She remembered them all, and they kept blotting out the picture of Roger as she had so often seen him--big and bronzed by the sun--when he came striding over the cliffs to Mallow Court.

The memory was like a hand holding her back from casting in her lot with him.
And then the pendulum swung back and she felt that to marry--someone, anyone--was the only thing left to her.

She was frightened of her love for Peter.

Marriage, she argued, would be--_must_ be--a shield and buckler against the cry of her heart.