for when she had arranged the table beneath the window as a dressing-table it occurred to her that it would have to be used for meals and she packed her things away on the shelf above the row of pegs.  Quite unthinkingly she had accepted this place as home; after the tiny cabin it did not seem very small; she was too mentally anxious to feel actual disadvantages.  It was days before the cramping influence of four walls made her stifle and gasp for breath.

She had a vague idea that Louis ought not to be wakened, but, looking at him, she saw that his neck was twisted uncomfortably and his collar cutting it.  Raising him gently she tried to take his coat and collar off; he half wakened and made a weak motion as though to strike her.  She noticed that his hands were very dirty.

“Louis, you’re so uncomfortable,” she whispered.  “Let me help you undress and get into bed.”

“Le’ me lone,” muttered Louis, lying heavily on her arm.  “Aft’ my blasted papers.  Blast’ German—­even if you did play Marsh—­laise!  Marsh—­laise!  Marsh—­shella!”

His voice rose in an insistence of terror and she laid her face against his soothingly.

Then she drew back, sickened by the smell of the various mixtures he had been drinking.

“Ugh—­he is horrible,” she whispered, and bit her lip and frowned.

Then his frightened eyes sought hers and she whispered softly.

“Poor boy.  Don’t be so frightened.  Marcella is here.”

“Marsh—­Marcella,” he said, making a desperate effort to sit up and look round.  He looked at her, bewildered, at the room, and then his eyes focussed on the lion over the mantelpiece.

“Bri’sh line, ole girl!  Shtrength!  I’m a line—­fi’ f’r you when we’re married.”

“We are married, dear,” she said.  “Can’t you remember it?”

He stared at her again and dragged himself on to his elbow, looking into her face, his brain clearing rapidly.  After a moment’s desperate grasping for light he burst into tears.

“Married!  And drunk!  Oh, my God, why did you give me that money, little girl?”

She was crying, too, now, holding his damp, sticky hand.

“I thought—­if I trusted you—­to-day—­”

“You mustn’t trust me.  Oh, damn it all, I’m a chunk of jelly!”

“I thought—­Oh Louis, if someone loved me and trusted me to make myself a musician, I’d do it somehow—­and I’ve about as much music in me as a snail!” she cried passionately.  “You know I trusted you!  It seems to me that if you can’t remember for ten minutes, and try to be kind the very hour we’re married, the whole thing is hopeless—­”

He was getting rapidly sobered by his sense of shame, and looked at her with swimming eyes.  He struggled off the bed, lurched a little and nearly fell.

“Don’t you see I’m not like you?  We’re intrinsically different.  I might have been like you—­once.  It’s too late now.  If I’d been trusted before this thing gripped me so tight—­Marcella, the thing that makes other people do hard things is missing in me!  I’ve killed it by drinking and lying!  I’m without moral sense, Marcella!  Can’t you see?  I’m castrated in my mind!  There’s lots of people like that.”