I was extremely anxious that she shouldn’t betray herself. I reasoned, save the mark, as a psychologist. I had no doubt that the man knew of her being there; but he only knew it by hearsay. And that was bad enough. I could not help feeling that if he obtained some evidence for his senses by any sort of noise, voice, or movement, his madness would gain strength enough to burst the lock. I was rather ridiculously worried about the locks. A horrid mistrust of the whole house possessed me. I saw it in the light of a deadly trap. I had no weapon, I couldn’t say whether he had one or not. I wasn’t afraid of a struggle as far as I, myself, was concerned, but I was afraid of it for Doña Rita. To be rolling at her feet, locked in a literally tooth-and-nail struggle with Ortega would have been odious. I wanted to spare her feelings, just as I would have been anxious to save from any contact with mud the feet of that goatherd of the mountains with a symbolic face. I looked at her face. For immobility it might have been a carving. I wished I knew how to deal with that embodied mystery, to influence it, to manage it. Oh, how I longed for the gift of authority! In addition, since I had become completely sane, all my scruples against laying hold of her had returned. I felt shy and embarrassed. My eyes were fixed on the bronze handle of the fencing-room door as if it were something alive. I braced myself up against the moment when it would move. This was what was going to happen next. It would move very gently. My heart began to thump. But I was prepared to keep myself as still as death and I hoped Doña Rita would have sense enough to do the same. I stole another glance at her face and at that moment I heard the word: “Beloved!” form itself in the still air of the room, weak, distinct, piteous, like the last request of the dying. With great presence of mind I whispered into Doña Rita’s ear: “Perfect silence!” and was overjoyed to discover that she had heard me, understood me; that she even had command over her rigid lips. She answered me in a breath (our cheeks were nearly touching): “Take me out of this house.” I glanced at all her clothing scattered about the room and hissed forcibly the warning “Perfect immobility”; noticing with relief that she didn’t offer to move, though animation was returning to her and her lips had remained parted in an awful, unintended effect of a smile. And I don’t know whether I was pleased when she, who was not to be touched, gripped my wrist suddenly. It had the air of being done on purpose because almost instantly another: “Beloved!” louder, more agonized if possible, got into the room and, yes, went home to my heart. It was followed without any transition, preparation, or warning, by a positively bellowed: “Speak, perjured beast!” which I felt pass in a thrill right through Doña Rita like an electric shock, leaving her as motionless as before.