Everything, I say to myself, is changed. I think I was dead, before. Now she has touched the life of me, the quick of me; she has put back my flesh and opened me up. Everything is changed. I still feel her, inside me. I still feel her, moving upon my thigh. I imagine her waking, meeting my gaze. I think, ''I will tell her, then. I will say, "I meant to cheat you. I cannot cheat you now. This was Richard''s plot. We can make it ours.''"—We can make it ours, I think; or else, we can give it up entirely. I need only escape from Briar: she can
help me do that—she''s a thief, and clever. We can make our own secret way to London, find money for ourselves . . .
So I calculate and plan, while she lies slumbering with her face upon my hand. My heart beats hard again. I am filled, as with colour or light, with a sense of the life we will have, together. Then I also sleep. And in sleeping I suppose I must move away from her—or she must move, from me—and then she must wake, with the day, and rise: for when I open my eyes she has gone, the bed is cool. I hear her in her own room, splashing water. I rise up from my pillow, and my nightgown gapes at my breast: she has undone the ribbons, in the dark. I move my legs. I am wet, still wet, from the sliding and the pressing of her hand.