sometimes in such circumstances. And to his horror he felt himself

driven to regret almost that the usages of a society ready to forgive
the shooting of a burglarforbade him, under the circumstances, even

as much as a thought of murder. Nevertheless, he clenched his fists
and set his teeth hard. And he was afraid at the same time. He was

afraid with that penetrating faltering fear that seems, in the very
middle of a beat, to turn one's heart into a handful of dust. The

contamination of her crime spread out, tainted the universe, tainted
himself; woke up all the dormant infamies of the world; caused a

ghastly kind of clairvoyance in which he could see the towns and
fields of the earth, its sacred places, its temples and its houses,

peopled by monsters--by monsters of duplicity, lust, and murder. She
was a monster--he himself was thinking monstrous thoughts . . . and

yet he was like other people. How many men and women at this very
moment were plunged in abominations--meditated crimes. It was

frightful to think of. He remembered all the streets--the well-to-do
streets he had passed on his way home; all the innumerable houses with

closed doors and curtained windows. Each seemed now an abode of
anguish and folly. And his thought, as if appalled, stood still,

recalling with dismay the decorous and frightful silence that was
like a conspiracy; the grim, impenetrable silence of miles of walls

concealing passions, misery, thoughts of crime. Surely he was not the
only man; his was not the only house . . . and yet no one knew--no one

guessed. But he knew. He knew with unerring certitude that could not
be deceived by the correct silence of walls, of closed doors, of

curtained windows. He was beside himself with a despairing agitation,
like a man informed of a deadly secret--the secret of a calamity

threatening the safety of mankind--the sacredness, the peace of life.
He caught sight of himself in one of the looking-glasses. It was a

relief. The anguish of his feeling had been so powerful that he more
than half expected to see some distorted wild face there, and he was

pleasantly surprised to see nothing of the kind. His aspect, at any
rate, would let no one into the secret of his pain. He examined

himself with attention. His trousers were turned up, and his boots a
little muddy, but he looked very much as usual. Only his hair was

lightly" target="_blank" title="ad.轻微地；细长的">slightly ruffled, and that disorder, somehow, was so suggestive of
trouble that he went quickly to the table, and began to use the

brushes, in an anxious desire to obliterate the compromising trace,
that only vestige of his emotion. He brushed with care, watching the

effect of his smoothing; and another face, lightly" target="_blank" title="ad.轻微地；细长的">slightly pale and more
tense than was perhaps desirable, peered back at him from the toilet

glass. He laid the brushes down, and was not satisfied. He took them
up again and brushed, brushed mechanically--forgot himself in that

occupation. The tumult of his thoughts ended in a sluggish flow of
reflection, such as, after the outburst of a volcano, the almost

imperceptible progress of a stream of lava, creeping languidly over a
convulsed land and pitilessly obliterating any landmark left by the

shock of the earthquake. It is a destructive but, by comparison, it is
a peacefulphenomenon. Alvan Hervey was almost soothed by the

deliberate pace of his thoughts. His moral landmarks were going one by
one, consumed in the fire of his experience, buried in hot mud, in

ashes. He was cooling--on the surface; but there was enough heat left
somewhere to make him slap the brushes on the table, and turning away,

say in a fiercewhisper: "I wish him joy . . . Damn the woman."
He felt himself utterly corrupted by her wickedness, and the most

significantsymptom of his moral downfall was the bitter, acrid
satisfaction with which he recognized it. He, deliberately, swore in

his thoughts; he meditated sneers; he shaped in profound silence words
of cynical unbelief, and his most cherished convictions stood revealed

finally as the narrow prejudices of fools. A crowd of shapeless,
unclean thoughts crossed his mind in a stealthy rush, like a band of

veiled malefactors hastening to a crime. He put his hands deep into
his pockets. He heard a faint ringing somewhere, and muttered to

himself: "I am not the only one . . . not the only one." There was
another ring. Front door!

His heart leaped up into his throat, and forthwith descended as low as
his boots. A call! Who? Why? He wanted to rush out on the landing and

shout to the servant: "Not at home! Gone away abroad!" . . . Any
excuse. He could not face a visitor. Not this evening. No. To-morrow.

. . . Before he could break out of the numbness that enveloped him
like a sheet of lead, he heard far below, as if in the entrails of the

earth, a door close heavily. The house vibrated to it more than to a
clap of thunder. He stood still, wishing himself invisible. The room

was very chilly. He did not think he would ever feel like that. But
people must be met--they must be faced--talked to--smiled at. He

heard another door, much nearer--the door of the drawing-room--being
opened and flung to again. He imagined for a moment he would faint.

How absurd! That kind of thing had to be gone through. A voice spoke.
He could not catch the words. Then the voice spoke again, and

footsteps were heard on the first floor landing. Hang it all! Was he
to hear that voice and those footsteps whenever any one spoke or

moved? He thought: "This is like being haunted--I suppose it will last
for a week or so, at least. Till I forget. Forget! Forget!" Someone

was coming up the second flight of stairs. Servant? He listened,
then, suddenly, as though an incredible, frightfulrevelation had

been shouted to him from a distance, he bellowed out in the empty
room: "What! What!" in such a fiendish tone as to astonish himself.

The footsteps stopped outside the door. He stood openmouthed, maddened
and still, as if in the midst of a catastrophe. The door-handle

rattled lightly. It seemed to him that the walls were coming apart,
that the furniture swayed at him; the ceiling slanted queerly for a

moment, a tall wardrobe tried to topple over. He caught hold of
something and it was the back of a chair. So he had reeled against a

chair! Oh! Confound it! He gripped hard.
The flamingbutterfly poised between the jaws of the bronze dragon

radiated a glare, a glare that seemed to leap up all at once into a
crude, blinding fierceness, and made it difficult for him to

distinguish plainly the figure of his wife standingupright with her
back to the closed door. He looked at her and could not detect her

breathing. The harsh and violent light was beating on her, and he
was amazed to see her preserve so well the composure of her upright

attitude in that scorching brilliance which, to his eyes, enveloped
her like a hot and consuming mist. He would not have been surprised if

she had vanished in it as suddenly as she had appeared. He stared and
listened; listened for some sound, but the silence round him was

absolute--as though he had in a moment grown completely deaf as well
as dim-eyed. Then his hearing returned, preternaturally sharp. He

heard the patter of a rain-shower on the window panes behind the
lowered blinds, and below, far below, in the artificial abyss of the

square, the deadened roll of wheels and the splashy trotting of a
horse. He heard a groan also--very distinct--in the room--close to

his ear.
He thought with alarm: "I must have made that noise myself;" and at

the same instant the woman left the door, stepped firmly across the
floor before him, and sat down in a chair. He knew that step. There

was no doubt about it. She had come back! And he very nearly said
aloud "Of course!"--such was his sudden and masterful perception of

the indestructible character of her being. Nothing could destroy her--
and nothing but his own destruction could keep her away. She was the

incarnation of all the short moments which every man spares out of his
life for dreams, for precious dreams that concrete the most cherished,

the most profitable of his illusions. He peered at her with inward
trepidation. She was mysterious, significant, full of obscure meaning

--like a symbol. He peered, bending forward, as though he had been
discovering about her things he had never seen before. Unconsciously

he made a step towards her--then another. He saw her arm make an
ample, decidedmovement and he stopped. She had lifted her veil. It

was like the lifting of a vizor.
The spell was broken. He experienced a shock as though he had been

called out of a trance by the sudden noise of an explosion. It was
even more startling and more distinct; it was an infinitely more

intimate change, for he had the sensation of having come into this
room only that very moment; of having returned from very far; he was

made aware that some essential part of himself had in a flash returned
into his body, returned finally from a fierce and lamentable region,

from the dwelling-place of unveiled hearts. He woke up to an amazing
infinity of contempt, to a droll bitterness of wonder, to a

disenchanted conviction of safety. He had a glimpse of the
irresistible force, and he saw also the barrenness of his

convictions--of her convictions. It seemed to him that he could never
make a mistake as long as he lived. It was morally impossible to go

wrong. He was not elated by that certitude; he was dimly uneasy about
its price; there was a chill as of death in this triumph of sound

principles, in this victory snatched under the very shadow of
disaster.

The last trace of his previous state of mind vanished, as the
instantaneous and elusive trail of a bursting meteor vanishes on the

profoundblackness of the sky; it was the faint flicker of a painful
thought, gone as soon as perceived, that nothing but her