One of her hands on her lap moved slightly as though his words had
fallen there and she had thrown them off on the floor. But her silence

encouraged him. Possibly it meant remorse--perhaps fear. Was she
thunderstruck by his attitude? . . . Her eyelids dropped. He seemed

to understand ever so much--everything! Very well--but she must be
made to suffer. It was due to him. He understood everything, yet he

judged it indispensable to say with an obvious affectation of
civility:

"I don't understand--be so good as to . . ."
She stood up. For a second he believed she intended to go away, and

it was as though someone had jerked a string attached to his heart. It
hurt. He remained open-mouthed and silent. But she made an irresolute

step towards him, and instinctively he moved aside. They stood before
one another, and the fragments of the torn letter lay between

them--at their feet--like an insurmountable obstacle, like a sign of
eternal separation! Around them three other couples stood still and

face to face, as if waiting for a signal to begin some action--a
struggle, a dispute, or a dance.

She said: "Don't--Alvan!" and there was something that resembled a
warning in the pain of her tone. He narrowed his eyes as if trying to

pierce her with his gaze. Her voice touched him. He had aspirations
after magnanimity, generosity, superiority--interrupted, however, by

flashes of indignation and anxiety--frightful anxiety to know how far
she had gone. She looked down at the torn paper. Then she looked up,

and their eyes met again, remained fastened together, like an
unbreakable bond, like a clasp of eternal complicity; and the

decorous silence, the pervading quietude of the house which enveloped
this meeting of their glances became for a moment inexpressibly vile,

for he was afraid she would say too much and make magnanimity
impossible, while behind the profound mournfulness of her face there

was a regret--a regret of things done--the regret of delay--the
thought that if she had only turned back a week sooner--a day

sooner--only an hour sooner. . . . They were afraid to hear again the
sound of their voices; they did not know what they might say--perhaps

something that could not be recalled; and words are more terrible than
facts. But the tricky fatality that lurks in obscure impulses spoke

through Alvan Hervey's lips suddenly; and he heard his own voice with
the excited and sceptical curiosity with which one listens to actors'

voices speaking on the stage in the strain of a poignant situation.
"If you have forgotten anything . . . of course . . . I . . ."

Her eyes blazed at him for an instant; her lips trembled--and then she
also became the mouth-piece of the mysterious force forever hovering

near us; of that perverse inspiration, wandering capricious and
uncontrollable, like a gust of wind.

"What is the good of this, Alvan? . . . You know why I came back.
. . . You know that I could not . . . "

He interrupted her with irritation.
"Then! what's this?" he asked, pointing downwards at the torn letter.

"That's a mistake," she said hurriedly, in a muffled voice.
This answer amazed him. He remained speechless, staring at her. He had

half a mind to burst into a laugh. It ended in a smile as involuntary
as a grimace of pain.

"A mistake . . ." he began, slowly, and then found himself unable to
say another word.

"Yes . . . it was honest," she said very low, as if speaking to the
memory of a feeling in a remote past.

He exploded.
"Curse your honesty! . . . Is there any honesty in all this! . . .

When did you begin to be honest? Why are you here? What are you now?
. . . Still honest? . . . "

He walked at her, raging, as if blind; during these three quick
strides he lost touch of the material world and was whirled

interminably through a kind of empty universe made up of nothing but
fury and anguish, till he came suddenly upon her face--very close to

his. He stopped short, and all at once seemed to remember something
heard ages ago.

"You don't know the meaning of the word," he shouted.
She did not flinch. He perceived with fear that everything around him

was still. She did not move a hair's breadth; his own body did not
stir. An imperturbable calm enveloped their two motionless figures,

the house, the town, all the world--and the triflingtempest of his
feelings. The violence of the short tumult within him had been such as

could well have shattered all creation; and yet nothing was changed.
He faced his wife in the familiar room in his own house. It had not

fallen. And right and left all the innumerable dwellings, standing
shoulder to shoulder, had resisted the shock of his passion, had

presented, unmoved, to the loneliness of his trouble, the grim silence
of walls, the impenetrable and polished discretion of closed doors and

curtained windows. Immobility and silence pressed on him, assailed
him, like two accomplices of the immovable and mute woman before his

eyes. He was suddenly vanquished. He was shown his impotence. He was
soothed by the breath of a corruptresignation coming to him through

the subtle irony of the surrounding peace.
He said with villainous composure:

"At any rate it isn't enough for me. I want to know more--if you're
going to stay."

"There is nothing more to tell," she answered, sadly.
It struck him as so very true that he did not say anything. She went

on:
"You wouldn't understand. . . ."

"No?" he said, quietly. He held himself tight not to burst into howls
and imprecations.

"I tried to be faithful . . ." she began again.
"And this?" he exclaimed, pointing at the fragments of her letter.

"This--this is a failure," she said.
"I should think so," he muttered, bitterly.

"I tried to be faithful to myself--Alvan--and . . . and honest to
you. . . ."

"If you had tried to be faithful to me it would have been more to the
purpose," he interrupted, angrily. "I've been faithful to you and you

have spoiled my life--both our lives . . ." Then after a pause the
unconquerable preoccupation of self came out, and he raised his voice

to ask resentfully, "And, pray, for how long have you been making a
fool of me?"

She seemed horribly shocked by that question. He did not wait for an
answer, but went on moving about all the time; now and then coming up

to her, then wandering off restlessly" target="_blank" title="ad.不安定地；烦躁地">restlessly to the other end of the room.
"I want to know. Everybody knows, I suppose, but myself--and that's

your honesty!"
"I have told you there is nothing to know," she said, speaking

unsteadily as if in pain. "Nothing of what you suppose. You don't
understand me. This letter is the beginning--and the end."

"The end--this thing has no end," he clamoured, unexpectedly. "Can't
you understand that? I can . . . The beginning . . ."

He stopped and looked into her eyes with concentrated intensity,
with a desire to see, to penetrate, to understand, that made him

positively hold his breath till he gasped.
"By Heavens!" he said, standingperfectly still in a peering attitude

and within less than a foot from her.
"By Heavens!" he repeated, slowly, and in a tone whose involuntary

strangeness was a complete mystery to himself. "By Heavens--I could
believe you--I could believe anything--now!"

He turned short on his heel and began to walk up and down the room
with an air of having disburdened himself of the final pronouncement

of his life--of having said something on which he would not go back,
even if he could. She remained as if rooted to the carpet. Her eyes

followed the restless movements of the man, who avoided looking at
her. Her wide stare clung to him, inquiring, wondering and doubtful.

"But the fellow was forever sticking in here," he burst out,
distractedly. "He made love to you, I suppose--and, and . . ." He

lowered his voice. "And--you let him."