“Yes.  Perfectly clear.  I’ve been tried to the utmost, and I can’t pretend that, for a time, the old feelings—­the old feelings are not. . . .”  He sighed. . . .  “But I forgive you. . . .”

She made a slight movement without uncovering her eyes.  In his profound scrutiny of the carpet he noticed nothing.  And there was silence, silence within and silence without, as though his words had stilled the beat and tremor of all the surrounding life, and the house had stood alone—­the only dwelling upon a deserted earth.

He lifted his head and repeated solemnly: 

“I forgive you . . . from a sense of duty—­and in the hope . . .”

He heard a laugh, and it not only interrupted his words but also destroyed the peace of his self-absorption with the vile pain of a reality intruding upon the beauty of a dream.  He couldn’t understand whence the sound came.  He could see, foreshortened, the tear-stained, dolorous face of the woman stretched out, and with her head thrown over the back of the seat.  He thought the piercing noise was a delusion.  But another shrill peal followed by a deep sob and succeeded by another shriek of mirth positively seemed to tear him out from where he stood.  He bounded to the door.  It was closed.  He turned the key and thought:  that’s no good. . . .  “Stop this!” he cried, and perceived with alarm that he could hardly hear his own voice in the midst of her screaming.  He darted back with the idea of stifling that unbearable noise with his hands, but stood still distracted, finding himself as unable to touch her as though she had been on fire.  He shouted, “Enough of this!” like men shout in the tumult of a riot, with a red face and starting eyes; then, as if swept away before another burst of laughter, he disappeared in a flash out of three looking-glasses, vanished suddenly from before her.  For a time the woman gasped and laughed at no one in the luminous stillness of the empty room.

He reappeared, striding at her, and with a tumbler of water in his hand.  He stammered:  “Hysterics—­Stop—­They will hear—­Drink this.”  She laughed at the ceiling.  “Stop this!” he cried.  “Ah!”

He flung the water in her face, putting into the action all the secret brutality of his spite, yet still felt that it would have been perfectly excusable—­in any one—­to send the tumbler after the water.  He restrained himself, but at the same time was so convinced nothing could stop the horror of those mad shrieks that, when the first sensation of relief came, it did not even occur to him to doubt the impression of having become suddenly deaf.  When, next moment, he became sure that she was sitting up, and really very quiet, it was as though everything—­men, things, sensations, had come to a rest.  He was prepared to be grateful.  He could not take his eyes off her, fearing, yet unwilling to admit, the possibility of her beginning again; for, the experience, however contemptuously he tried to think of it, had