n there
came the sound of a heavy fall. Leonora said again: "You see!"

The sounds went on from the hall below; the light of the candle Edward
held flickered up between the hand rails of the gallery. Then they heard
his voice:

"Give me Glasgow... Glasgow, in Scotland.. I want the number of a man
called White, of Simrock Park, Glasgow... Edward White, Simrock Park,
Glasgow... ten minutes... at this time of night..." His voice was
quite level, normal, and patient. Alcohol took him in the legs, not the
speech. "I can wait," his voice came again. "Yes, I know they have a
number. I have been in communication with them before."

"He is going to telephone to your mother," Leonora said. "He will make
it all right for her." She got up and closed the door. She came back
to the fire, and added bitterly: "He can always make it all right for
everybody, except me--excepting me!"

The girl said nothing. She sat there in a blissful dream. She seemed to
see her lover sitting as he always sat, in a round-backed chair, in
the dark hall--sitting low, with the receiver at his ear, talking in a
gentle, slow voice, that he reserved for the telephone--and saving
the world and her, in the black darkness. She moved her hand over the
bareness of the base of her throat, to have the warmth of flesh upon it
and upon her bosom.

She said nothing; Leonora went on talking....

God knows what Leonora said. She repeated that the girl must belong
to her husband. She said that she used that phrase because, though
she might have a divorce, or even a dissolution of the marriage by the
Church, it would still be adultery that the girl and Edward would be
committing. But she said that that was necessary; it was the price that
the girl must pay for the sin of having made Edward love her, for the
sin of loving her husband. She talked on and on, beside the fire. The
girl must become an adulteress; she had wronged Edward by being so
beautiful, so gracious, so good. It was sinful to be so good. She must
pay the price so as to save the man she had wronged.

In between her pauses the girl could hear the voice of Edward, droning
on, indistinguishably, with jerky pauses for replies. It made her glow
with pride; the man she loved was working for her. He at least was
resolved; was malely determined; knew the right thing. Leonora talked
on with her eyes boring into Nancy's. The girl hardly looked at her and
hardly heard her. After a long time Nancy said--after hou