For an instant he stood head to foot icily still, without the least feeling, or thought, or stir—staring into the looking-glass. Then an inconceivable drumming beat on his ear. A warm surge, like the onset of a wave, broke in him, flooding neck, face, forehead, even his hands with colour. He caught himself up and wheeled deliberately and completely round, his eyes darting to and fro, suddenly to fix themselves in a prolonged stare, while he took a deep breath, caught back his self-possession and paused. Then he turned and once more confronted the changed strange face in the glass. Without a sound he drew up a chair and sat down, just as he was, frigid and appalled, at the foot of the bed. To sit like this, with a kind of incredibly swift torrent of consciousness, bearing echoes and images like straws and bubbles on its surface, could not be called thinking. Some stealthy hand had thrust open the sluice of memory. And words, voices, faces of mockery streamed through without connection, tendency, or sense. His hands hung between his knees, a deep and settled frown darkened the features stooping out of the direct rays of the light, and his eyes wandered like busy and inquisitive, but stupid, animals over the floor. If, in that flood of unintelligible thoughts, anything clearly recurred at all, it was the memory of Sheila. He saw her face, lit, transfigured, distorted, stricken, appealing, horrified. His lids narrowed; a vague terror and horror mastered him. He hid his eyes in his hands and cried without sound, without tears, without hope, like a desolate child. He ceased crying; and sat without stirring. And it seemed after an age of vacancy and meaninglessness he heard a door shut downstairs, a distant voice, and then the rustle of some one slowly ascending the stairs. Some one turned the handle; in vain; tapped. ‘Is that you, Arthur?’ For an instant Lawford paused, then like a child listening for an echo, answered, ‘Yes, Sheila.’ And a sigh broke from him; his voice, except for a little huskiness, was singularly unchanged. ‘May I come in?’ Lawford stood softly up and glanced once more into the glass. His lips set tight, and a slight frown settled between the long, narrow, intensely dark eyes. ‘Just one moment, Sheila,’ he answered slowly, ‘just one moment.’ ‘How long will you be?’ He stood erect and raised his voice, gazing the while impassively into the glass. ‘It’s no use,’ he began, as if repeating a lesson, ‘it’s no use your asking me, Sheila. Please give me a moment, a...I am not quite myself, dear,’ he added quite gravely. The faintest hint of vexation was in the answer. ‘What is the matter? Can’t I help? It’s so very absurd—’ ‘What is absurd?’ he asked dully. ‘Why, standing like this outside my own bedroom door. Are you ill? I will send for Dr. Simon.’ ‘Please, Sheila, do nothing of the kind. I am not ill. I merely want a little time to think in.’ There was again a brief pause, and then a slight rattling at the handle.