he next minute a reaction; and when the
carriage happened, while it grazed a turn, to catch the straight shaft
from the lamp of a policeman in the act of playing his inquisitive
flash over an opposite house-front, she let herself wince at being thus
incriminated only that she might protest, not less quickly, against
mere blind terror. It had become, for the occasion, preposterously,
terror--of which she must shake herself free before she could properly
measure her ground. The perception of this necessity had in truth soon
aided her; since she found, on trying, that, lurid as her prospect
might hover there, she could none the less give it no name. The sense of
seeing was strong in her, but she clutched at the comfort of not being
sure of what she saw. Not to know what it would represent on a longer
view was a help, in turn, to not making out that her hands were embrued;
since if she had stood in the position of a producing cause she should
surely be less vague about what she had produced. This, further, in its
way, was a step toward reflecting that when one's connection with any
matter was too indirect to be traced it might be described also as too
slight to be deplored. By the time they were nearing Cadogan Place she
had in fact recognised that she couldn't be as curious as she desired
without arriving at some conviction of her being as innocent. But there
had been a moment, in the dim desert of Eaton Square, when she broke
into speech.

"It's only their defending themselves so much more than they need--it's
only THAT that makes me wonder. It's their having so remarkably much to
say for themselves."

Her husband had, as usual, lighted his cigar, remaining apparently as
busy with it as she with her agitation. "You mean it makes you feel that
you have nothing?" To which, as she made no answer, the Colonel added:
"What in the world did you ever suppose was going to happen? The man's
in a position in which he has nothing in life to do."

Her silence seemed to characterise this statement as superficial, and
her thoughts, as always in her husband's company, pursued an independent
course. He made her, when they were together, talk, but as if for
some other person; who was in fact for the most part herself. Yet she
addressed herself with him as she could never have done without him.
"He has behaved beautifully--he did from the first. I've thought it,
all along, wonderful of him; and I've more than once, when I've had a
chanc