But when at last, promise given, he fell asleep on her naked breast; when at last dawn peeped at her through the chinks of the window-curtains; Fear came to Patricia—and with Fear, Fear’s kinswoman, self-reproach. Would he hate her when he awoke? Would he retract the promise given? Had she robbed him of honour, lost him his lonely battle for self-respect? Had her thoughts been all of him? Had she given herself all selflessly? Self-reproach whispered to her in the dawning: “Delilah! Delilah! Delilah!” PART TWENTY-NINE THE LIFTING OF SHADOWS § 1 It is no use pretending that Patricia was not ashamed of herself. She was—desperately so. She felt she had been guilty of immodesty, that she had forfeited her husband’s respect. Even when she realized that Peter’s damaged memory retained few details of their night except his promise to consult her father about his “nerves,” shame haunted her. Constantly, she expected him to remember, to judge, to condemn. . . . Yet actually, she had saved him! For Peter’s “case” was, in the terms of psycho-pathology (which is the science of soul-illnesses), one of “repressed complexes”: in simpler language, of bottling-up his emotions. At their first interview, Heron Baynet put the matter to him very simply. Heron Baynet said:— “You have been twice wounded. One wound is in your arm; the other in your mind. The flesh wound, you let us cure: you understood that it needed antiseptics, drainage, bandages, rest. The wound in your mind, you concealed from us; and it has festered. Now, tell me what you are most afraid of?” “Consumption,” admitted Peter. “Why?” “I don’t know. I’m afraid I’ve got it.” “Who put that idea into your head?” Peter told his father-in-law about the gas-attack at Neuve Église, about his cough, about Rolleston. Heron Baynet laughed. “We’ll soon settle that. Tubercle’s a bacillus. I’ll test you for it. Now then, what else are you afraid of?” Peter hesitated. “Shall I tell you a few things?” went on the doctor. “You’re afraid of going out by yourself. You’re afraid of noise. You’re afraid of time.” “How do you know?” asked Peter wonderingly. “My dear boy, how do _you_ know things? By learning them, don’t you? You were trained in business, you were trained in soldiering. You studied them. Well, I’ve studied the mind. . . .” “But damn it,” said Peter, “one oughtn’t to be afraid of anything. At least, one oughtn’t to admit it?” “Oughtn’t”—the doctor smiled. “There’s no ‘oughtn’t’ in the mind. ‘Oughtn’t’ is half your trouble. You’ve corked-up all these fears with your ‘oughtn’ts’ until they’ve become obsessions.” “Well, anyway I’m a coward,” said Peter stubbornly. “You can’t get over that, however much you argue about it.”