Women in Love by D H Lawrence Chapter 30 Page 77

lying there alone, confronted by the terrible clock, with its eternal tick-tack. All life, all life resolved itself into this: tick-tack, tick-tack, tick-tack; then the striking of the hour; then the tick-tack, tick-tack, and the twitching of the clock-fingers.

Gerald could not save her from it. He, his body, his motion, his life — it was the same ticking, the same twitching across the dial, a horrible mechanical twitching forward over the face of the hours. What were his kisses, his embraces. She could hear their tick-tack, tick-tack.

Ha — ha — she laughed to herself, so frightened that she was trying to laugh it off — ha — ha, how maddening it was, to be sure, to be sure!

Then, with a fleeting self-conscious motion, she