Mad with terror, she raised her hands with a queer clawing movement to cover her eyes and her temples, opening her mouth in a dumb shriek. There was no sound. But the sight of her slowly arrested him. He hung before her, looking at her fixedly, as she stood crouched against the wall with open, bleeding mouth, and wide-staring eyes, and two hands clawing over her temples. And his lust to see her bleed, to break her and destroy her, rose from an old source against her. It carried him. He wanted satisfaction. But he had seen her standing there, a piteous, horrified thing, and he turned his face aside in shame and nausea. He went and sat heavily in his chair, and a curious ease, almost like sleep, came over his brain. She walked away from the wall towards the fire, dizzy, white to the lips, mechanically wiping her small, bleeding mouth. He sat motionless. Then, gradually, her breath began to hiss, she shook, and was sobbing silently, in grief for herself. Without looking, he saw. It made his mad desire to destroy her come back. At length he lifted his head. His eyes were glowing again, fixed on her. “And what did he give them you for?” he asked, in a steady, unyielding voice. Her crying dried up in a second. She also was tense. “They came as valentines,” she replied, still not subjugated, even if beaten. “When, today?” “The pearl ear-rings today—the amethyst brooch last year.” “You’ve had it a year?” “Yes.” She felt that now nothing would prevent him if he rose to kill her. She could not prevent him any more. She was yielded up to him. They both trembled in the balance, unconscious. “What have you had to do with him?” he asked, in a barren voice. “I’ve not had anything to do with him,” she quavered. “You just kept ’em because they were jewellery?” he said. A weariness came over him. What was the worth of speaking any more of it? He did not care any more. He was dreary and sick. She began to cry again, but he took no notice. She kept wiping her mouth on her handkerchief. He could see it, the blood-mark. It made him only more sick and tired of the responsibility of it, the violence, the shame. When she began to move about again, he raised his head once more from his dead, motionless position. “Where are the things?” he said. “They are upstairs,” she quavered. She knew the passion had gone down in him. “Bring them down,” he said. “I won’t,” she wept, with rage. “You’re not going to bully me and hit me like that on the mouth.” And she sobbed again. He looked at her in contempt and compassion and in rising anger. “Where are they?” he said. “They’re in the little drawer under the looking-glass,” she sobbed. He went slowly upstairs, struck a match, and found the trinkets. He brought them downstairs in his hand. “These?” he said, looking at them as they lay in his palm. She looked at them without answering. She was not interested in them any more. He looked at the little jewels. They were pretty.