Two or three steps nearer the door, he said, “By the way, do you want anything?  Money?—­do you happen to want any money?  I will send a blank cheque tomorrow.  I have sufficient for both of us.  I shall tell the landlady to order your Christmas dinner.  How about wine?  There is champagne, I know, and bottled ale.  Sherry?  I’ll drop a letter to my wine-merchant; I think the sherry’s running dry.”

Her sense of hearing was now afflicted in as gross a manner as had been her sense of smell.  She could not have spoken, though her vitality had pressed for speech.  It would have astonished him to hear that his solicitude concerning provender for her during his absence was not esteemed a kindness; for surely it is a kindly thing to think of it; and for whom but for one for whom he cared would he be counting the bottles to be left at her disposal, insomuch that the paucity of the bottles of sherry in the establishment distressed his mental faculties?

“Well, good-bye,” he said, finally.  The door closed.

Had Dahlia’s misery been in any degree simulated, her eyes now, as well as her ears, would have taken positive assurance of his departure.  But with the removal of her handkerchief, the loathsome sight of the dinner-table would have saluted her, and it had already caused her suffering enough.  She chose to remain as she was, saying to herself, “I am dead;” and softly revelling in that corpse-like sentiment.  She scarcely knew that the door had opened again.

“Dahlia!”

She heard her name pronounced, and more entreatingly, and closer to her.

“Dahlia, my poor girl!” Her hand was pressed.  It gave her no shudders.

“I am dead,” she mentally repeated, for the touch did not run up to her heart and stir it.

“Dahlia, do be reasonable!  I can’t leave you like this.  We shall be separated for some time.  And what a miserable fire you’ve got here!  You have agreed with me that we are acting for the best.  It’s very hard on me I try what I can to make you comf—­happy; and really, to see you leaving your dinner to get cold!  Your hands are like ice.  The meat won’t be eatable.  You know I’m not my own master.  Come, Dahly, my darling!”

He gently put his hand to her chin, and then drew away the handkerchief.

Dahlia moaned at the exposure of her tear-stained face, she turned it languidly to the wall.

“Are you ill, my dear?” he asked.

Men are so considerately practical!  He begged urgently to be allowed to send for a doctor.

But women, when they choose to be unhappy, will not accept of practical consolations!  She moaned a refusal to see the doctor.

Then what can I do for her? he naturally thought, and he naturally uttered it.