rk, rather
handsome woman, with sleek hair, in a silk dress of a dark rich colour
entered. Lawford closed the door. But his face was in shadow. He had
still a moment's respite.

'I need not ask you to be patient,' he began quickly; 'if I could
possibly have spared you--if there had been anybody in the world to go
to... I am in horrible, horrible trouble, Sheila. It is inconceivable. I
said I was sane: so I am, but the fact is--I went out for a walk; it
was rather stupid, perhaps, so soon: and I think I was taken ill, or
something--my heart. A kind of fit, a nervous fit. Possibly I am a
little unstrung, and it's all, it's mainly fancy: but I think, I can't
help thinking it has a little distorted--changed my face; everything,
Sheila; except, of course, myself. Would you mind looking?' He walked
slowly and with face averted towards the dressing-table.

'Simply a nervous--to make such a fuss, to scare!...' began his wife,
following him.

Without a word he took up the two old china candlesticks, and held them,
one in each lank-fingered hand, before his face, and turned.

Lawford could see his wife--every tint and curve and line as distinctly
as she could see him. Her cheeks never had much colour; now her whole
face visibly darkened, from pallor to a dusky leaden grey, as she
gazed. It was not an illusion then; not a miserable hallucination. The
unbelievable, the inconceivable, had happened. He replaced the candles
with trembling fingers and sat down.

'Well,' he said, 'what is it really; what is it really, Sheila? What on
earth are we to do?'

'Is the door locked?' she whispered. He nodded. With eyes fixed
stirlessly on his face, Sheila unsteadily seated herself, a little out
of the candlelight, in the shadow. Lawford rose and put the key of
the door on his wife's little rose-wood prayer-desk at her elbow, and
deliberately sat down again.

'You said "a fit"--where?'

'I suppose--is--is it very different--hopeless? You will understand
my being... O Sheila, what am I to do?' His wife sat perfectly still,
watching him with unflinching attention.

'You gave me to understand--"a nervous fit"; where?'

Lawford took a deep breath, and quietly faced her again. 'In the old
churchyard, Widderstone; I was looking at--at the gravestones.'

'A fit; in the old churchyard, Widderstone--you were "looking at the
gravestones"?'

Lawford shut his mouth. 'I suppose so--a fit,' he said presently.
'My heart went a little queer, an