TO THE LIGHTHOUSEmutilated body (it was alive still) was thrown backinto the sea.]

‘ Mrs. Ramsay! " Lily cried, “ Mrs. Ramsay!"But nothing happened. The pain increased.That anguish could reduce one to such a pitch ofimbecility, she thought! Anyhow the old manhad not heard her. He remained benignant,calm—if one chose to think it, sublime. Heavenbe praised, no one had heard her cry that ignominious cry, stop pain, stop! She had notobviously taken leave of her senses. No one hadseen her step off her strip of board into the watersof annihilation. She remained a skimpy old maid,holding a paint—brush on the lawn. l

And now slowly the pain of the want, and thebitter anger (to be called back, just as she thoughtshe would never feel sorrow for Mrs. Ramsayagain. Had she missed her among the coffeecups at breakfast? not in the least) lessened; andof their anguish left, as antidote, a relief that wasbalm in itself, and also, but more mysteriously,a sense of some one there, of Mrs. Ramsay, relieved for a moment of the weight that the worldhad put on her, staying lightly by her side andthen (for this was Mrs. Ramsay in all her beauty)raising to her forehead a wreath of white flowers278