en, as sane, highly-organised beings?
And should a miserable, worthless cur like this have the power to break
that self-control?

My whole pride and self-respect rose within me and commanded my passion
back within its bounds. I unclosed my hands from his throat, and
dropped him upon the ground as I would have dropped a loathsome rag. I
watched him rise to his knees, trembling, livid, and terrified, and
then scramble to his feet, with satisfaction that such a thing as he
had not broken my own self-rule.

"Go out of this room," I said, and he hurried to the communicating door
and shut and locked it securely after him.

I heard him do so with a contemptuous smile. Had I wanted to follow
him, my weight flung against the flimsy door would have crushed it in.
And I was left standing there alone in the smoke-filled room with
nothing but the thunderings of my own pulses to break the silence.

"Inconceivable," I murmured, as the wind, stirring it, made the tinder
creak in the grate as it lay in thick masses; "simply inconceivable."

I walked to the hearth and bent over the dog. He was already growing
cold. He had not moved after his first fall. That vicious, brutal stab
must have gone straight in to the heart. The knife was wet half way to
the hilt. I lifted the dog and laid him on the sofa, and then
mechanically went towards the blowing night-air and into the balcony.
My brain seemed only just maintaining its right balance. So: all my
labour, all my confident expectations, all the triumphant pleasure with
which I had come back that afternoon, all the result of this past
year's effort were now--nothing. Marked in a little floating dust. And
not one vestige, not an outline nor portion of an outline even,
remained. There was no rough draft, no sketch, no note or notes of the
work existing. I always wrote every manuscript, from its first word to
its last, on the paper that went to the publisher. My inspiration of
the time was transferred direct to the page before me, and there it
stood, without alteration, without correction. I never wanted to touch
it or change it after it was once written. I was struck down, back
again to the foot of the hill of work up which I had been struggling
twelve months. Lucia, celebrity, pleasure, liberty, everything I
coveted was now removed, taken far off into indefinite distance from
me. For twelve months they had been coming nearer, steadily nearer,
with each accomplished page, and to-day, only