Sons and Lovers - Daimon Club

Miriam met him at the lane-end. She was wearing a new dress
of figured muslin that had short sleeves. Those short sleeves,
and Miriam's brown-skinned arms beneath them--such pitiful, resigned
arms--gave him so much pain that they helped to make him cruel.
She had made herself look so beautiful and fresh for him. She seemed
to blossom for him alone. Every time he looked at her--a mature young
woman now, and beautiful in her new dress--it hurt so much that his
heart seemed almost to be bursting with the restraint he put on it.
But he had decided, and it was irrevocable.
On the hills they sat down, and he lay with his head in her lap,
whilst she fingered his hair. She knew that "he was not there,"
as she put it. Often, when she had him with her, she looked for him,
and could not find him. But this afternoon she was not prepared.
It was nearly five o'clock when he told her. They were sitting
on the bank of a stream, where the lip of turf hung over a hollow
bank of yellow earth, and he was hacking away with a stick, as he
did when he was perturbed and cruel.
"I have been thinking," he said, "we ought to break off."