For one moment he thought wildly of trying to call in help from outside, of frustrating her design by sheer force.  But that could not be done.  As between them, he would be reckoned the madman.  Her project might be deferred by that means, perhaps.  It could not be prevented.

It was that terrible self-possession of hers that gave the last turn to the screw.  She could not be dealt with as one frantic, beside herself, to be wooed and quieted back into a state of sanity.  She was at this moment as sane as he.  She was not to be held back, either, by a mere assurance of his love for her.  She had never, it appeared, lacked that assurance.  But her life, warmed even as it was by their love, presented itself to her somehow as something that it was not possible to go on with.

This was very strange.  All of its externals that were visible to him made up, one would have said, a pattern singularly gracious and untroubled.  Buried in it somewhere there must be some toxic focus that poisoned everything.  He must meet her on her own ground.  He must show her another remedy than the desperate one she was now resolved upon.  And before he could find the remedy he must discover the virus.  The only clue he had was the thing she said about sentimentalists, and the tragedies they caused.  More tragedies than malice was responsible for.  He thought she was probably right about that.  It was some such tragedy anyhow, ludicrous, unendurable, that had driven her to this acquiescence in defeat.

He said, in as even a tone as he could manage, “I asked about trains because I wondered whether there was anything to hurry you to-night.  Packing to do or such a matter; or whether we mightn’t have a really leisurely visit.  I haven’t much idea what time it is except that I don’t think I’ve eaten anything since around the middle of the day.  Have you?  If you’d stay and have supper with me ...  But I suppose you’re expected somewhere else.”

She smiled ironically at this, then laughed at herself.  “It happens rather funnily that I haven’t been so little expected or looked after, since I came home from New York, as I am to-night.  I’m not—­in a hurry at all.  I’ll stay as long as you like.”

“Is that a promise?” he asked.  “As long as I liked would be a long while.”

“I’ll stay,” she said, “as long as I can see I’m making you happy.  When I find myself beginning to be a—­torment to you, I shall—­vanish.”

He was almost overmastered by the temptation to forget everything except his love for her; to let himself be persuaded that his ghastly surmise was a product of his own fatigue and sleepless nights.  Even supposing there were a basis for it, could he not keep her safe by just holding her fast in his arms?

He dashed the thought out of his mind.  She would surrender to his embrace, how eagerly he already knew.  For a matter of moments, for a few swift hours she might forget.  She had perhaps come to him meaning to forget for a while in just that way.  But no embrace could be eternal.  He’d have to let her go at last and nothing would be changed save that she would have a memory of him to take with her into her long sleep.