her feet, locked in a literally tooth-and-nail struggle with Ortega
would have been odious. I wanted to spare her feelings, just as I

would have been anxious to save from any contact with mud the feet
of that goatherd of the mountains with a symbolic face. I looked

at her face. For immobility it might have been a carving. I
wished I knew how to deal with that embodied mystery, to influence

it, to manage it. Oh, how I longed for the gift of authority! In
addition, since I had become completely sane, all my scruples

against laying hold of her had returned. I felt shy and
embarrassed. My eyes were fixed on the bronze handle of the

fencing-room door as if it were something alive. I braced myself
up against the moment when it would move. This was what was going

to happen next. It would move very gently. My heart began to
thump. But I was prepared to keep myself as still as death and I

hoped Dona Rita would have sense enough to do the same. I stole
another glance at her face and at that moment I heard the word:

"Beloved!" form itself in the still air of the room, weak,
distinct, piteous, like the last request of the dying.

With great presence of mind I whispered into Dona Rita's ear:
"Perfect silence!" and was overjoyed to discover that she had heard

me, understood me; that she even had command over her rigid lips.
She answered me in a breath (our cheeks were nearly touching):

"Take me out of this house."
I glanced at all her clothing scattered about the room and hissed

forcibly the warning "Perfect immobility"; noticing with relief
that she didn't offer to move, though animation was returning to

her and her lips had remained parted in an awful, unintended effect
of a smile. And I don't know whether I was pleased when she, who

was not to be touched, gripped my wrist suddenly. It had the air
of being done on purpose because almost instantly another:

"Beloved!" louder, more agonized if possible, got into the room
and, yes, went home to my heart. It was followed without any

transition, preparation, or warning, by a positively bellowed:
"Speak, perjured beast!" which I felt pass in a thrill right

through Dona Rita like an electric shock, leaving her as motionless
as before.

Till he shook the door handle, which he did immediately afterwards,
I wasn't certain through which door he had spoken. The two doors

(in different walls) were rather near each other. It was as I
expected. He was in the fencing-room, thoroughly aroused, his

senses on the alert to catch the slightest sound. A situation not
to be trifled with. Leaving the room was for us out of the

question. It was quite possible for him to dash round into the
hall before we could get clear of the front door. As to making a

bolt of it upstairs there was the same objection; and to allow
ourselves to be chased all over the empty house by this maniac

would have been mere folly. There was no advantage in locking
ourselves up anywhereupstairs where the original doors and locks

were much lighter. No, true safety was in absolutestillness and
silence, so that even his rage should be brought to doubt at last

and die expended, or choke him before it died; I didn't care which.
For me to go out and meet him would have been stupid. Now I was

certain that he was armed. I had remembered the wall in the
fencing-room decorated with trophies of cold steel in all the

civilized and savage forms; sheaves of assegais, in the guise of
columns and grouped between them stars and suns of choppers,

swords, knives; from Italy, from Damascus, from Abyssinia, from the
ends of the world. Ortega had only to make his barbarous choice.

I suppose he had got up on the bench, and fumbling about amongst
them must have brought one down, which, falling, had produced that

rattling noise. But in any case to go to meet him would have been
folly, because, after all, I might have been overpowered (even with

bare hands) and then Dona Rita would have been left utterly
defenceless.

"He will speak," came to me the ghostly, terrified murmur of her
voice. "Take me out of the house before he begins to speak."

"Keep still," I whispered. "He will soon get tired of this."
"You don't know him."

"Oh, yes, I do. Been with him two hours."
At this she let go my wrist and covered her face with her hands

passionately. When she dropped them she had the look of one
morally crushed.

"What did he say to you?"
"He raved."

"Listen to me. It was all true!"
"I daresay, but what of that?"

These ghostly words passed between us hardly louder than thoughts;
but after my last answer she ceased and gave me a searching stare,

then drew in a long breath. The voice on the other side of the
door burst out with an impassioned request for a little pity, just

a little, and went on begging for a few words, for two words, for
one word - one poor little word. Then it gave up, then repeated

once more, "Say you are there, Rita, Say one word, just one word.
Say 'yes.' Come! Just one little yes."

"You see," I said. She only lowered her eyelids over the anxious
glance she had turned on me.

For a minute we could have had the illusion that he had stolen
away, unheard, on the thick mats. But I don't think that either of

us was deceived. The voice returned, stammering words without
connection, pausing and faltering, till suddenly steadied it soared

into impassioned entreaty, sank to low, harsh tones, voluble, lofty
sometimes and sometimes abject. When it paused it left us looking

profoundly at each other.
"It's almost comic," I whispered.

"Yes. One could laugh," she assented, with a sort of sinister
conviction. Never had I seen her look exactly like that, for an

instant another, an incredible Rita! "Haven't I laughed at him
innumerable times?" she added in a sombre whisper.

He was muttering to himself out there, and unexpectedly" target="_blank" title="ad.意外地；突然地">unexpectedly shouted:
"What?" as though he had fancied he had heard something. He waited

a while before he started up again with a loud: "Speak up, Queen
of the goats, with your goat tricks. . ." All was still for a

time, then came a most awful bang on the door. He must have
stepped back a pace to hurl himself bodily against the panels. The

whole house seemed to shake. He repeated that performance once
more, and then varied it by a prolonged drumming with his fists.

It WAS comic. But I felt myself struggling mentally with an
invading gloom as though I were no longer sure of myself.

"Take me out," whispered Dona Rita feverishly, "take me out of this
house before it is too late."

"You will have to stand it," I answered.
"So be it; but then you must go away yourself. Go now, before it

is too late."
I didn't condescend to answer this. The drumming on the panels

stopped and the absurdthunder of it died out in the house. I
don't know why precisely then I had the acute vision of the red

mouth of Jose Ortega wriggling with rage between his funny
whiskers. He began afresh but in a tired tone:

"Do you expect a fellow to forget your tricks, you wicked little
devil? Haven't you ever seen me dodging about to get a sight of

you amongst those pretty gentlemen, on horseback, like a princess,
with pure cheeks like a carved saint? I wonder I didn't throw

stones at you, I wonder I didn't run after you shouting the tale -
curse my timidity! But I daresay they knew as much as I did.

More. All the new tricks - if that were possible."
While he was making this uproar, Dona Rita put her fingers in her

ears and then suddenly changed her mind and clapped her hands over
my ears. Instinctively I disengaged my head but she persisted. We

had a short tussle without moving from the spot, and suddenly I had
my head free, and there was complete silence. He had screamed