There was a power upon earth that could make the delicate, radiant, distinguished woman so utterly forget shame and dignity and womanliness, that she would open her door at midnight to a man who had not been wedded to her in the sight of God? If that could happen, what was there left to cling to in this world? Where was one's faith in honour, fidelity, in God's grace and one's own human worth? A horror took hold of her so oppressive that she thought she must cry out aloud. With a shy glance she looked at her husband. God grant that he hear nothing. She was ashamed before him. She desired to call out, to sing, laugh, only to drown the noise of that whispering which assailed her ear like the wave of a fiery sea. But no, he heard nothing. His sightless eyes stared at the ceiling. He was busied with his breathing. His chest heaved and fell like a defective machine. He didn't even expect her to read to him now. She went up to the bed and asked, listening with every nerve: "Do you want to sleep, Nathaniel?" He lowered his eyelids in assent. "Yes--read," he breathed. "Shall I read softly?" Again he assented. "But read--don't sleep." Fear flickered in his eyes. "No, no," she stammered. He motioned her to go now, and again became absorbed in the problem of breathing. Mary took up the hymnal. "You are to read a song of death," she said to herself, for her promise must be kept. And as though she had not understood her own admonition, she repeated: "You are to read a song of death." But her hearing was morbidly alert, and while the golden figures on the book danced a ghostly dance before her eyes, she heard again what she desired to hear. It was like the whispering of the wind against a forbidden gate. She caught words: "_Je t'aime--follement--j'en mourrai--je t'adore--mon amour--mon amour._" Mary closed her eyes. It seemed to her again as though hot waves streamed over her. And she had lost shame, too. For there was something in all that which silenced reproach, which made this monstrous deed comprehensible, even natural. If one was so mad with love, if one felt that one could die of it! So that existed, and was not only the lying babble of romances? And her spirit returned and compared her own experience of love with what she witnessed now. She had shrunk pitifully from his first kiss. When he had gone, she had embraced her mother's knees, in fear and torment at the thought of following this strange man. And she remembered how, on the evening of her wedding, her mother had whispered into her ear, "Endure, my child, and pray to God, for that is the lot of woman." And it was that which, until to-day, she had called love. Oh, those happy ones there, those happy ones! "Mary," the hollow voice from the bed came. She jumped up. "What?" "You--don't read." "I'll read; I'll read."