deteriorating.  He was appalled.  What was it?  She was gone.  Why?  His head was ready to burst with the endeavour to understand her act and his subtle horror of it.  Everything was changed.  Why?  Only a woman gone, after all; and yet he had a vision, a vision quick and distinct as a dream:  the vision of everything he had thought indestructible and safe in the world crashing down about him, like solid walls do before the fierce breath of a hurricane.  He stared, shaking in every limb, while he felt the destructive breath, the mysterious breath, the breath of passion, stir the profound peace of the house.  He looked round in fear.  Yes.  Crime may be forgiven; uncalculating sacrifice, blind trust, burning faith, other follies, may be turned to account; suffering, death itself, may with a grin or a frown be explained away; but passion is the unpardonable and secret infamy of our hearts, a thing to curse, to hide and to deny; a shameless and forlorn thing that tramples upon the smiling promises, that tears off the placid mask, that strips the body of life.  And it had come to him!  It had laid its unclean hand upon the spotless draperies of his existence, and he had to face it alone with all the world looking on.  All the world!  And he thought that even the bare suspicion of such an adversary within his house carried with it a taint and a condemnation.  He put both his hands out as if to ward off the reproach of a defiling truth; and, instantly, the appalled conclave of unreal men, standing about mutely beyond the clear lustre of mirrors, made at him the same gesture of rejection and horror.

He glanced vainly here and there, like a man looking in desperation for a weapon or for a hiding place, and understood at last that he was disarmed and cornered by the enemy that, without any squeamishness, would strike so as to lay open his heart.  He could get help nowhere, or even take counsel with himself, because in the sudden shock of her desertion the sentiments which he knew that in fidelity to his bringing up, to his prejudices and his surroundings, he ought to experience, were so mixed up with the novelty of real feelings, of fundamental feelings that know nothing of creed, class, or education, that he was unable to distinguish clearly between what is and what ought to be; between the inexcusable truth and the valid pretences.  And he knew instinctively that truth would be of no use to him.  Some kind of concealment seemed a necessity because one cannot explain.  Of course not!  Who would listen?  One had simply to be without stain and without reproach to keep one’s place in the forefront of life.

He said to himself, “I must get over it the best I can,” and began to walk up and down the room.  What next?  What ought to be done?  He thought:  “I will travel—­no I won’t.  I shall face it out.”  And after that resolve he was greatly cheered by the reflection that it would be a mute and an easy part to play, for no one would be likely to converse with