in London, I should have held myself We sitting here among the cranberries!

You straggling women. And suddenly realise, in them as in me,

After much struggling and loss in love and in the world of man, the protagonist throws in his lot with a woman who is already married. Together they go into another country, she perforce leaving her children behind. The conflict of love and hate goes on between the man and the woman, and between these two and the world around them, till it reaches some sort of conclusion, they transcend into some condition of blessedness like lavender crocuses, snowdrops, like Roman but why not—?