with clenched hands and fiery eyes, undecided whether or not to
murder me. And I waited.

He moved away, inarticulately grumbling, and resumed with
difficulty his hat.

'Ver' well,' he hiccupped morosely, 'ver' well; I'm going. Tha's all.'

He lurched into the passage, and then I heard him fumbling a long time
with the outer door. He left the door and went into his bedroom, and
finally returned to me. He held one hand behind his back. I had sunk into
a chair by the small table on which the lamp stood, with my satchel
beside it.

'Now!' he said, halting in front of me. 'You've locked tha' door. I
can't go out.'

'Yes,' I admitted.

'Give me the key.'

I shook my head.

'Give me the key,' he cried. 'I mus' have the key.'

I shook my head.

Then he showed his right hand, and it held a revolver. He bent slightly
over the table, staring down at me as I stared up at him. But as his chin
felt the heat rising from the chimney of the lamp, he shifted a little to
one side. I might have rushed for shelter into some other room; I might
have grappled with him; I might have attempted to soothe him. But I could
neither stir nor speak. Least of all, could I give him the key--for him
to go and publish his own disgrace in the thoroughfares. So I just gazed
at him, inactive.

'I s'll kill you!' he muttered, and raised the revolver.

My throat became suddenly dry. I tried to make the motion of swallowing,
and could not. And looking at the revolver, I perceived in a swift
revelation the vast folly of my inexperience. Since he was already drunk,
why had I not allowed him to drink more, to drink himself into a stupor?
Drunkards can only be cured when they are sober. To commence a course of
moral treatment at such a moment as I had chosen was indeed the act of a
woman. However, it was too late to reclaim the bottle from the street.

I saw that he meant to kill me. And I knew that previously, during our
encounter at the window, I had only pretended to myself that I thought
there was a risk of his killing me. I had pretended, in order to increase
the glory of my martyrdom in my own sight. Moreover, my brain, which was
working with singular clearness, told me that for his sake I ought to
give up the key. His exposure as a helpless drunkard would be infinitely
preferable to his exposure as a murderer.

Yet I could not persuade myself to relinquish the key. If I did so, he
would imagine that he had frightened me. But I had no fear