* * * * * Winnie awoke. It was morning. The room was cool and bright. Sunshine made the curtains glow. Patches of light shuddered delicately here and there on the carpet. A spear of sunshine shattered itself on the looking-glass. Laurence slept on the couch with one arm tossed up and his head thrown back. His mouth was open. His face in sleep seemed stupid with pain. Bobby slept, too, stirring and murmuring a little. Winnie found something oppressive in the sight of people yet asleep like this in the full blaze of the sun. Winnie's mind was clear and calm with the ease that came of sleep, but in the center of her being there was a dark spot of indecipherable vividness. Last night. A dark spot of terror. Laurence had been frightened by what they had done. She wanted him to be frightened. Death. If she had a child she would suffer--not he. White and holy, she felt herself a beautiful stillness in the turmoil of Laurence's cowardice. She could not part with this fear. If she had a child Death was her hand from which he could not escape. * * * * * Midnight. The street lamps shone into the bedroom, making bright shadows of the drawn shades. The bureau, the bed, bits of furniture here and there, darker than the darkness, reflected the light heavily. Laurence stood outside the door in the hall. He was trembling, afraid of his own room. He had stayed away all day because he could not see Winnie, because he hoped that when he reached home she would be asleep. It was quiet. He opened the door and stepped inside. The sudden draught lifted the shades ponderously and let them drop again. Fresh, clean wind from the quiet midnight street surged into the room. Light floated in under the lifted shades. It seemed as if the wind, cold and shining, were washing away the darkness. Winnie was awake again. Laurence stood still. He waited a long time. He felt shaken. If I take her again she will die. He did not believe it. He went toward her with a nausea of relief. "Die" was the word of a song. It was the strange music of passion that said die. He waited by the bed. He wanted her to tell him to go away. He could feel her still and looking at him. When he knelt by the bed and reached his arms around her he wanted her to evade him. "Winnie?" She trembled when he touched her. He wanted her to speak. But she was quiet. She let him kiss her mouth. Death. His understanding could not hold the vagueness of the strange escaping word. He felt her thinning from his grasp. His veins swelled with death. Then he became the death-giver, glad, in spite of himself, of the drunkenness of moving with the unseen. Through the banality of sex which oppressed him, there pushed the will of an exalted and passionate horror. He took her. They were dead. * * * * *