ly
drunk, and the stuffy little room reeked of gin.

As it happened I never had been drunk. It was not one of my
weaknesses. But if it had been, I dare say I should have been no whit
the less horrified and alarmed and disgusted by this lamentable
spectacle of my wife--stupid, maundering, helpless, and looking
like ... But I need not labour the point.

In a flash I recalled a host of tiny incidents. It was extraordinary
how recollection of the series rattled through my aching brain like
bullets from a machine gun.

'This has been going on for some time,' I thought. And then, 'I
suppose this is hereditary.' And then, 'This comes of the visits to
Howard Street.' And then, curiously, recollection of those wedding
night words of Heron's which had so touched me: 'Heaven bless you! You
are both good souls, and--after all, some are happy!'

'Perhaps some are,' I thought bitterly. 'I wonder how much chance
there is for us!'

In just the same way that I think the beginning of our married life
might have been more agreeable, less strained, if we had had
occasional quarrels, so I dare say at this critical juncture, when I
discovered that my wife had taken to drinking gin, my right cue would
have been that of open anger, or, at all events, of very serious
remonstrance. It is easy to be wise after the event. I did not seem to
be capable just then of talk or remonstrance. All I did actually say
was commonplace and unhelpful enough. I said as I remember very well:

'Good God, Fanny! I never thought to see you in this state.' And
then--the futility of it--I added, 'You'd better take your hat and boots
off.'

With that I walked into the sitting-room, closing the dividing door
after me, and subsided, utterly despondent, into the chair beside the
empty grate. A man could hardly have been more wretched; but after a
minute or two I could not help noticing, as something singular, the
fact that my sick, dizzy headache had disappeared. The pain had been
horridly severe, or I should hardly have noticed its cessation. But
now, with my spirits at their lowest and blackest, my head was clear
again; not by a gradual recovery, but in one minute.

XI

Fanny had spoken no word to me, and I wondered greatly at that. She
had only smiled and laughed in a foolish way. And a few minutes later
I knew by her breathing--even through the closed doors, so much was
unmistakable--that she slept.

I may have sat there for an hour, nursing the bitt