He determined he would go to sleep.

But his was a waking weariness.  He tried counting.  He tried to distract his thoughts from her by going over the atomic weights of the elements....

He shivered, and realised that he was cold and sitting cramped on an uncomfortable horsehair chair.  He had dozed.  He glanced for the yellow line between the folding doors.  It was still there, but it seemed to quiver.  He judged the candle must be flaring.  He wondered why everything was so still.

Now why should he suddenly feel afraid?

He sat for a long time trying to hear some movement, his head craning forward in the darkness.

A grotesque idea came into his head that all that had happened a very long time ago.  He dismissed that.  He contested an unreasonable persuasion that some irrevocable thing had passed.  But why was everything so still?

He was invaded by a prevision of unendurable calamity.

Presently he rose and crept very slowly, and with infinite precautions against noise, towards the folding doors.  He stood listening with his ear near the yellow chink.

He could hear nothing, not even the measured breathing of a sleeper.

He perceived that the doors were not shut, but slightly ajar.  He pushed against the inner one very gently and opened it silently.  Still there was no sound of Ethel.  He opened the door still wider and peered into the room.  The candle had burnt down and was flaring in its socket.  Ethel was lying half undressed upon the bed, and in her hand and close to her face was a rose.

He stood watching her, fearing to move.  He listened hard and his face was very white.  Even now he could not hear her breathing.

After all, it was probably all right.  She was just asleep.  He would slip back before she woke.  If she found him—­

He looked at her again.  There was something in her face—­

He came nearer, no longer heeding the sounds he made.  He bent over her.  Even now she did not seem to breathe.

He saw that her eyelashes were still wet, the pillow by her cheek was wet.  Her white, tear-stained face hurt him....

She was intolerably pitiful to him.  He forgot everything but that and how he had wounded her that day.  And then she stirred and murmured indistinctly a foolish name she had given him.

He forgot that they were going to part for ever.  He felt nothing but a great joy that she could stir and speak.  His jealousy flashed out of being.  He dropped upon his knees.

“Dear,” he whispered, “Is it all right?  I ...  I could not hear you breathing.  I could not hear you breathing.”

She started and was awake.

“I was in the other room,” said Lewisham in a voice full of emotion.  “Everything was so quiet, I was afraid—­I did not know what had happened.  Dear—­Ethel dear.  Is it all right?”

She sat up quickly and scrutinised his face.  “Oh! let me tell you,” she wailed.  “Do let me tell you.  It’s nothing.  It’s nothing.  You wouldn’t hear me.  You wouldn’t hear me.  It wasn’t fair—­before you had heard me....”