He assisted her to alight, rang the bell, and said goodnight in a voice which he was sure did not betray him to the coachman. XIX 'TWAS WONDROUS PITIFUL Othello, i. 3. Poor Ashe got home more dead than alive. His passion had shaken him like a delirium. He had been swept away by his emotion, and had thrown to the winds past and future. He felt as the carriage drove away from Mrs. Fenton's as if he had been swung up and down on some monstrous wave and dashed, broken and bleeding, on a rough shore. He could not think; and fortunately for him he was even too benumbed to feel greatly. He reached the Hermans' in a sort of half-stupor, in which indifference, keen joy, and bitter contrition were strangely mingled. The contrition, however, seemed somehow to belong to the future; it was what he must endure when the time should come for repentance; the joy was a present blessing, tingling in his every fibre. He met Mrs. Herman in the hall. She exclaimed when she saw him, and he stood smiling at her, swaying as if he were intoxicated. "What has happened?" she cried. "What have you done to your face?" The room and his cousin swam before him in a golden mist. He felt that he was grinning idiotically, yet he could not stop. He tried to speak, but his lips seemed too swollen to form words. He put out his hand to grasp a chair, and perceived that he could not reach it. "I--fall!" he managed to ejaculate. Mrs. Herman caught him, and supported him to a chair. He felt her arm around him, and he wondered how he came to be thus embraced. He tried to grope back into the dusk of his mind to tell what had happened, and the fiery glow of the moment in which he had kissed the hand of Mrs. Fenton came back to him. He sat suddenly erect. "Cousin Helen," he said, with husky fervor, "I have been a wretch, and I rejoice in it! I have found out how sweet it is to sin! I am lost, lost, lost!" He buried his face in his hands, almost hysterical. He felt his cousin's hand on his shoulder. "Philip," she said decisively, "you must stop this, and tell me what has happened." "I beg your pardon," he answered, dropping his hands. "Mrs. Fenton was attacked by a drunken man in the North End, and I fought him. I am afraid that I am pretty disreputable looking." "Yes, you are. I hope that is the worst of it." She took him by the arm and led him into the library, where she established him in an easy-chair by the fire. "I'll send for a doctor to look you over," she said, "and meanwhile you are to take what I give you." She left him, and Philip sat looking into the coals. "Ah, if the glove had been off!" he murmured half aloud. He flushed hotly, and struck his clenched hand against his breast, rubbing it back and forth until the haircloth within stung and smarted. "No, no," he said to himself fiercely. "I will not think about it!"