le. He could not
go away.

"I shall have to go back to her," she said.

"Shall you come with me to Italy, Allaye?"

"Yes. Where is Madame?"

"Gone! Gigi--all gone."

"Gone where?"

"Gone back to France--called up."

"And Madame and Louis and Max?"

"Switzerland."

He stood helplessly looking at her.

"Well, I must go," she said.

He watched her with his yellow eyes, from under his long black
lashes, like some chained animal, haunted by doom. She turned and
left him standing.

She found Mrs. Tuke wildly clutching the edge of the sheets, and
crying: "No, Tommy dear. I'm awfully fond of you, you know I am. But
go away. Oh God, go away. And put a space between us. Put a space
between us!" she almost shrieked.

He pushed up his hair. He had been working on a big choral work
which he was composing, and by this time he was almost demented.

"Can't you stand my presence!" he shouted, and dashed downstairs.

"Nurse!" cried Effie. "It's _no use_ trying to get a grip on life.
You're just at the mercy of _Forces_," she shrieked angrily.

"Why not?" said Alvina. "There are good life-forces. Even the will
of God is a life-force."

"You don't understand! I want to be _myself_. And I'm _not_ myself.
I'm just torn to pieces by _Forces_. It's horrible--"

"Well, it's not my fault. I didn't make the universe," said Alvina.
"If you have to be torn to pieces by forces, well, you have. Other
forces will put you together again."

"I don't want them to. I want to be myself. I don't want to be
nailed together like a chair, with a hammer. I want to be myself."

"You won't be nailed together like a chair. You should have faith in
life."

"But I hate life. It's nothing but a mass of forces. _I_ am
intelligent. Life isn't intelligent. Look at it at this moment. Do
you call this intelligent? Oh--Oh! It's horrible! Oh--!" She was
wild and sweating with her pains. Tommy flounced out downstairs,
beside himself. He was heard talking to some one in the moonlight
outside. To Ciccio. He had already telephoned wildly for the doctor.
But the doctor had replied that Nurse would ring him up.

The moment Mrs. Tuke recovered her breath she began again.

"I hate life, and faith, and such things. Faith is only fear. And
life is a mass of unintelligent forces to which intelligent beings
are submitted. Prostituted. Oh--oh!!--prostituted--"

"Perhaps life itself is something bigger than intelligence," said
Alvina.

"Bigger than int