“You mean the murder?” she said with a faint shiver.

“That,” said I, “might be termed the central feature.  Just look at things as they happened.  I am condemned to death.  I try to face it like a man and a gentleman.  I make my arrangements.  I give up what I can call mine no longer.  I think I will devote the rest of my days to performing such acts of helpfulness and charity as would be impossible for a sound man with a long life before him to undertake.  I do it in a half-jesting spirit, refusing to take death seriously.  I pledge myself to an act of helpfulness which I regard at first as merely an incident in my career of beneficence.  I am gradually caught in the tangle of a drama which at times develops into sheer burlesque, and before I can realise what is going to happen, it turns into ghastly tragedy.  I am overwhelmed in grotesque disaster—­it is the only word.  Instead of creating happiness all around me, I have played havoc with human lives.  I stand on the brink and look back and see that it is all one gigantic devil-jest at my expense.  I thank God I am going to die.  I do die—­for practical purposes.  I come back to life and—­here I am.  Can I be quite the same person I was a year ago?”

She reflected for a few moments.  Then she said: 

“No.  You can’t be—­quite the same.  A man of your nature would either have his satirical view of life hardened into bitter cynicism or he would be softened by suffering and face things with new and nobler ideals.  He would either still regard life as a jest—­but instead of its being an odd, merry jest it would be a grim, meaningless, hideous one; or he would see that it wasn’t a jest at all, but a full, wonderful, big reality.  I’ve expressed myself badly, but you see what I mean.”

“And what do you think has happened?” I asked.

“I think you have changed for the better.”

I smiled inwardly.  It sounded rather dull.  I said with a smile: 

“You never liked my cap and bells, Eleanor.”

“No!” she replied emphatically.  “What’s the use of mockery?  See where it led you.”

I rose, half-laughing at her earnestness, half-ashamed of myself, and took a couple of turns across the room.

“You’re right,” I cried.  “It led me to perdition.  You might make an allegory out of my career and entitle it ‘The Mocker’s Progress.’” I paused for a second or two, and then said suddenly, “Why did you from the first refuse to believe what everybody else does—­before I had the chance of looking you in the eyes?”

She averted her face.  “You forget that I had had the chance of searching deep beneath the mocker.”

I cannot, in reverence to her, set down what she said she found there.  I stood humbled and rebuked, as a man must do when the best in him is laid out before his sight by a good woman.

A maidservant brought in tea, set the table, and departed, Eleanor drew off her gloves and my glance fell on her right hand.