I stood for a second only before I burst open the door, but the strength of my impression was already so powerfully upon me that when I saw Westmacott by the fire holding the revolver I did not believe my eyes. When I say I did not believe my eyes I mean that I was quite soberly, deliberately persuaded that my eyes were telling an actual falsehood to my brain. Westmacott could not be standing by the fire; he must be lying somewhere on the ground, huddled and lifeless. I removed my eyes from the false Westmacott standing by the fire, and sent them roving over the floor in search of that other Westmacott from whom life had flown. I ran my eyes up and down the cracks between the tiles until they came to a darkness, and then, running them upwards, I reached the face of Ruth. She was there, shrinking as she must suddenly have shrunk when he snatched the revolver from her. In her face I read defeat, reaction, submission. She had struck her blow, and it had failed; and she and I were together beaten and vanquished. I knew that my attempt would be hopeless, but a great desperation seized hold of me, and I cried out, absurdly, miserably,— “There are other methods.” She only shook her head, and, pointing at the revolver, said,— “It kicked in my hand.” I looked across the room, and running to the fire I picked up some bits of china which had fallen in the grate; I tried to fit them together, repeating sorrowfully,— “Look, you have broken a plate, you have broken a plate to pieces.” V For how long we stood gazing at those ironical shards I do not know. There are moments of suspension in life when the whirling mind travels at so great a rate that everything else seems stationary; so, now, we were touched into immobility while our minds flew forward into space and time. I cannot say what the others found in that fourth dimension of thought; I, personally, returned to earth utterly inarticulate, with these two words shaping themselves and singing over and over in my brain: Futile creatures! futile creatures! It was as though some little mocking demon sat astride my nerve cords, drumming his heels, and chanting his refrain. I could have shaken myself like a dog coming out of water to shake him off. Then I became aware of Westmacott’s voice speaking at an immense distance.