What to do?  How much more of himself was he bound to surrender?  Through a confusion of thoughts some things came to him then very clearly.  Amongst others the grim, pitiless selfishness of his life.  How much must she have suffered before she had dared to do this thing!  He had taken up a burden and adjusted the weight to suit himself.  He had had no thought for her, no care save that the seemliness of his own absorbed life might not be disturbed.  And behind it all the other reason.  What a pigmy of a man he was, after all.

A clock from the town struck eleven.  He must decide!  A vision of her rose up before him.  He understood now her weakness and her strength.  She was an ordinary woman, seeking the affection her sex demanded from its legitimate source.  He understood the coming and going of the colour in her cheeks, her strained attempts to please, her barely controlled jealousy.  In that mad moment when he had planned for her salvation he had imagined that she would have understood.  What folly!  Why should she?  The complex workings of his innermost nature were scarcely likely to have been patent to her.  What right had he to build upon that?  What right, as an honest man, to contract a debt he never meant to pay?  If he had not at the moment realized his responsibilities that was his own fault.  From her point of view they were obvious enough, and it was from her point of view as well as his own that they must be considered.

He turned back to the hotel, walking a little unsteadily.  All the time he was not sure that this was not a dream.  And then on the wet pavement he came face to face with two cloaked figures, one of whom stopped short and called him by name.  It was Berenice!

“You!” he exclaimed, more than ever sure that he was not properly awake.

“Is it so wonderful?” she answered.  “To tell you the truth, I was not sleepy, and I felt like a little walk.  You can go back now, Bryan,” she said, turning to her maid.  “Mr. Mannering will see me home.”

As though by mutual consent they crossed to the sea-wall.

“What made you come out again?” she asked.  “No, don’t answer me!  I think that I know.”

“Impossible,” he murmured.

“I was going up to my room,” she said, “and as I passed the landing window which looks into the courtyard I saw you talking to your wife.  I—­I am afraid that I watched.  I saw her leave you.”

“Yes!”

“What was it that she gave you?  What is it that you have in your hand?”

He opened his fingers.  She turned her head away.  It seemed to him an eternity that she stood there.  When she spoke her voice was scarcely more than a whisper.

“Lawrence,” she said, “we have been very selfish, you and I!  There have been no words between us, but I think the compact has been there all the same.  It seemed to me somehow that it was a compensation, that it was part of the natural order of things, that as our own folly had kept us apart, you should still belong to me—­in my thoughts.  And I have no right to this, or any share of you, Lawrence.”