“I promise,” I answered and was about to add something, I forget what, when she cut me short, saying,

“That’s enough, for I know your word is rather better than your bond.  Now dress as quickly as you can or the dinner will be spoiled.”

CHAPTER IV

THROUGH THE GATES

Short as was the time at my disposal before the dinner-gong sounded, it proved ample for reflection.  With every article of attire that I discarded went some of that boudoir glamour till its last traces vanished with my walking-boots.  I was fallen indeed.  I who had come to this place so full of virtuous resolutions, could now only reflect upon the true and universal meaning of our daily prayer that we might be kept from temptation.  And yet what had tempted me?  For my life’s sake I could not say.  The desire to please a most charming woman and to keep her from making solitary experiments of a dangerous nature, I suppose, though whether they should be less dangerous carried out jointly remained to be seen.  Certainly it was not any wish to eat of her proffered apple of Knowledge, for already I knew a great deal more than I cared for about things in general.  Oh! the truth was that woman is the mightiest force in the world, at any rate where the majority of us poor men is concerned.  She commanded and I must obey.

I grew desperate and wondered if I could escape.  Perhaps I might slip out of the back door and run for it, without my great coat or hat although the night was so cold and I should probably be taken up as a lunatic.  No, it was impossible for I had forged a chain that might not be broken.  I had passed my word of honour.  Well, I was in for it and after all what was there of which I need be afraid that I should tremble and shrink back as though I were about to run away with somebody’s wife, or rather to be run away with quite contrary to my own inclination?  Nothing at all.  A mere nonsensical ordeal much less serious than a visit to the dentist.

Probably that stuff had lost its strength by now—­that is, unless it had grown more powerful by keeping, as is the case with certain sorts of explosives.  And if it had not, the worst to be expected was a silly dream, followed perhaps by headache.  That is, unless I did not chance to wake up again at all in this world, which was a most unpleasant possibility.  Another thing, suppose I woke and she didn’t!  What should I say then?  Of a certainty I should find myself in the dock.  Yes, and there were further dreadful eventualities, quite conceivable, every one of them, the very thought of which plunged me into a cold perspiration and made me feel so weak that I was obliged to sit down.

Then I heard the gong; to me it sounded like the execution bell to a prisoner under sentence of death.  I crept downstairs feebly and found Lady Ragnall waiting for me in the drawing-room, clothed with gaiety as with a garment.  I remember that it made me most indignant that she could be so happy in such circumstances, but I said nothing.  She looked me up and down and remarked,