Annette was astonished to find that she had got beyond being distressed or shocked. She was hardly at all interested in Frederic's state of mind or condition. She felt that something must be done, and she wanted to know exactly what. Annie, whoever or whatever she might be, was unhappy and something must be done to help her. Annette turned to Frederic and said: "What are you going to do?" He replied: "What can I do? Don't look at me like that. I'm not so bad as all that, I'm not." "But it is wicked." "I know it is, but you can't help it. I don't know. Everything seems all wrong. You go along quite quietly for months and months, and then suddenly everything's all wrong. It's queer to be talking to you like this. You don't understand the least little bit, though you are such a queer one. But I can talk to you just because you don't understand." "I do understand," said Annette. "How could you? You're only a little girl. Annie Lipsett--that's her name. She's going to have a baby. I suppose I ought to marry her. Lots of fellows do get married like that. I can't afford it. I don't love her. That's what's so horrible. I don't love her, and I can't pretend that I do, I can't make myself believe that I do. I was so beastly miserable, that's what it was. Things go wrong, and they stay wrong, and then you want something and clutch at it and miss it. Miss it all the time. It wasn't just a beastly thing, I swear it wasn't. I was so miserable, that's what it was. I'm miserable now, and the worst of it all is that I'm enjoying it. That's the sort of brute I am." Annette found that she was crying. Large tears welled out of her eyes and trickled down her cheeks into her mouth. The thing was closing in on her from all sides and suffocating her. Her imagination was baffled. She had thought herself bold, and suddenly she was out of her depth. She struck out blindly, and presently found a footing on the hard rock of conventional morality. From a suffering human being, craving sympathy, Annie Lipsett became a wicked woman to be condemned and shunned, a base creature who had enticed and enchained Frederic. Her footing on this rock was very insecure. Soon she was swept off it and flung hurtling down an empty sense of the treachery of her own emotions. She heard Frederic saying again: "Don't you tell any one!" She muttered a reply. Frederic finished his supper and she removed his plate and the empty dish into the scullery. Frederic followed her, She trembled from head to foot, and longed only for him to leave her. He stood plucking at the roller-towel on the door, and he said: "If any one did to you what I've done to her I should have to horsewhip him. Isn't it odd? I should think it simply absurd if anybody wanted to horsewhip me." Annette had a sudden gust of rage and through her clenched teeth she threw at him: "If you don't go away I'll smash a plate in your face." Frederic laughed nervously.