erloc
presumed that his wife had understood him, but he would have been glad to
hear her say what she thought at the moment. It would have been a
comfort.

There were several reasons why this comfort was denied him. There was a
physical obstacle: Mrs Verloc had no sufficient command over her voice.
She did not see any alternative between screaming and silence, and
instinctively she chose the silence. Winnie Verloc was temperamentally a
silent person. And there was the paralysing atrocity of the thought
which occupied her. Her cheeks were blanched, her lips ashy, her
immobility amazing. And she thought without looking at Mr Verloc: "This
man took the boy away to murder him. He took the boy away from his home
to murder him. He took the boy away from me to murder him!"

Mrs Verloc's whole being was racked by that inconclusive and maddening
thought. It was in her veins, in her bones, in the roots of her hair.
Mentally she assumed the biblical attitude of mourning--the covered face,
the rent garments; the sound of wailing and lamentation filled her head.
But her teeth were violently clenched, and her tearless eyes were hot
with rage, because she was not a submissive creature. The protection she
had extended over her brother had been in its origin of a fierce an
indignant complexion. She had to love him with a militant love. She had
battled for him--even against herself. His loss had the bitterness of
defeat, with the anguish of a baffled passion. It was not an ordinary
stroke of death. Moreover, it was not death that took Stevie from her.
It was Mr Verloc who took him away. She had seen him. She had watched
him, without raising a hand, take the boy away. And she had let him go,
like--like a fool--a blind fool. Then after he had murdered the boy he
came home to her. Just came home like any other man would come home to
his wife. . . .

Through her set teeth Mrs Verloc muttered at the wall:

"And I thought he had caught a cold."

Mr Verloc heard these words and appropriated them.

"It was nothing," he said moodily. "I was upset. I was upset on your
account."

Mrs Verloc, turning her head slowly, transferred her stare from the wall
to her husband's person. Mr Verloc, with the tips of his fingers between
his lips, was looking on the ground.

"Can't be helped," he mumbled, letting his hand fall. "You must pull
yourself together. You'll want all your wits about you. It is you who
brought the poli