had lost
consciousness. Again a hansom came up the street, with the rap of
hoofs, the swish of a whip, the wintry jingle of bells....

He began gently to consider these things, to perceive, rather than to
form, little inward pictures of what they signified; he saw the
lighted omnibus, the little swirl of faces round a news-board.

Then he began to consider what had brought him here; it seemed that he
saw himself, coming in his dark suit across the park, turning into the
thoroughfare and across it. He began to consider Amy; and it seemed to
him that in this intense and living silence he was conscious of her
for the first time without sorrow since ten days ago. He began to
consider.

* * * * *

Something brought him back in an instant to the room and his
perception of it, but he had not an idea what this was, whether a
movement or a sound. But on considering it afterwards he remembered
that it was as that sound is that wakes a man at the very instant of
his falling asleep, a sharp momentary tick, as of a clock. Yet he had
not been in the least sleepy.

On the contrary, he perceived now with an extreme and alert attention
the hand on the paper; he even turned his head slightly to see if the
pencil had moved. It was as motionless as at the beginning. He glanced
up, with a touch of surprise, at his hostess's face, and caught her in
the very act of turning her eyes from his. There was no impatience in
her movement: rather her face was of one absorbed, listening intently,
not like the bearded face opposite, introspective and intuitive, but
eagerly, though motionlessly, observant of the objective world. He
looked at Mrs. Stapleton. She too bore the same expression of intent
regarding thought on her usually rather tiresome face.

Then once again the silence began to come down, like a long, noiseless
hush.

This time, however, his progress was swifter and more sure. He passed
with the speed of thought through those processes that had been
measurable before, faintly conscious of the words spoken before the
sitting began--

"... If possible, the silence of thought."

He thought he understood now what this signified, and that he was
experiencing it. No longer did he dwell upon, or consider, with any
voluntary activity, the images that passed before him. Rather they
moved past him while he simply regarded them without understanding.
His perception ran swiftly outwards, as through concentric