When he had tried to resume his conversation with Belarab after Mrs. Travers’ arrival he had discovered himself unable to go on.  He had just enough self-control to break off the interview in measured terms.  He pointed out the lateness of the hour, a most astonishing excuse to people to whom time is nothing and whose life and activities are not ruled by the clock.  Indeed Lingard hardly knew what he was saying or doing when he went out again leaving everybody dumb with astonishment at the change in his aspect and in his behaviour.  A suspicious silence reigned for a long time in Belarab’s great audience room till the Chief dismissed everybody by two quiet words and a slight gesture.

With her chin in her hand in the pose of a sybil trying to read the future in the glow of dying embers, Mrs. Travers, without holding her breath, heard quite close to her the footsteps which she had been listening for with mingled alarm, remorse, and hope.

She didn’t change her attitude.  The deep red glow lighted her up dimly, her face, the white hand hanging by her side, her feet in their sandals.  The disturbing footsteps stopped close to her.

“Where have you been all this time?” she asked, without looking round.

“I don’t know,” answered Lingard.  He was speaking the exact truth.  He didn’t know.  Ever since he had released that woman from his arms everything but the vaguest notions had departed from him.  Events, necessities, things—­he had lost his grip on them all.  And he didn’t care.  They were futile and impotent; he had no patience with them.  The offended and astonished Belarab, d’Alcacer with his kindly touch and friendly voice, the sleeping men, the men awake, the Settlement full of unrestful life and the restless Shallows of the coast, were removed from him into an immensity of pitying contempt.  Perhaps they existed.  Perhaps all this waited for him.  Well, let all this wait; let everything wait, till to-morrow or to the end of time, which could now come at any moment for all he cared—­but certainly till to-morrow.

“I only know,” he went on with an emphasis that made Mrs. Travers raise her head, “that wherever I go I shall carry you with me—­against my breast.”

Mrs. Travers’ fine ear caught the mingled tones of suppressed exultation and dawning fear, the ardour and the faltering of those words.  She was feeling still the physical truth at the root of them so strongly that she couldn’t help saying in a dreamy whisper: 

“Did you mean to crush the life out of me?”

He answered in the same tone: 

“I could not have done it.  You are too strong.  Was I rough?  I didn’t mean to be.  I have been often told I didn’t know my own strength.  You did not seem able to get through that opening and so I caught hold of you.  You came away in my hands quite easily.  Suddenly I thought to myself, ‘now I will make sure.’”

He paused as if his breath had failed him.  Mrs. Travers dared not make the slightest movement.  Still in the pose of one in quest of hidden truth she murmured, “Make sure?”