rwards it did prove to be serious,
she would never forgive herself.

"He'll be here soon," she said cheerfully, to Louis in the bedroom.

"If he isn't--" moaned Louis, and stopped.

She gave him some brandy, against his will. Then, taking his wrist to
feel it, she felt his fingers close on her wrist, as if for aid. And
she sat thus on the bed holding his hand in the gloom of the lowered
gas.

IV

His weakness and his dependence on her gave her a feeling of kind
superiority. And also her own physical well-being was such that she
could not help condescending towards him. She cared for a trustful,
helpless little dog. She thought a great deal about him; she longed
ardently to be of assistance to him; she had an acute sense of her
responsibility and her duty. Yet, notwithstanding all that, her brain
was perhaps chiefly occupied with herself and her own attitude towards
existence. She became mentally and imaginatively active to an intense
degree. She marvelled at existence as she had never marvelled before,
and while seeming suddenly to understand it better she was far more
than ever baffled by it. Was it credible that the accident of a lad
losing control of a horse could have such huge and awful consequences
on two persons utterly unconnected with the lad? A few seconds sooner,
a few seconds later--and naught would have occurred to Louis, but he
must needs be at exactly a certain spot at exactly a certain instant,
with the result that now she was in torture! If this, if that, if the
other--Louis would have been well and gay at that very moment, instead
of a broken organism humiliated on a bed and clinging to her like a
despairing child.

The rapidity and variety of events in her life again startled her, and
once more she went over them. The disappearance of the bank-notes was
surely enough in itself. But on the top of that fell the miracle of
her love affair. Her marriage was like a dream of romance to her,
untrue, incredible. Then there was the terrific episode of Julian
on the previous night. One would have supposed that after that the
sensationalism of events would cease. But, no! The unforeseeable had
now occurred, something which reduced all else to mere triviality.

And yet what had in fact occurred? Acquaintances, in recounting her
story, would say that she had married her mistress's nephew, that
there had been trouble between Louis and Julian about some bank-notes,
and that Louis had had a bicycle accid