He threw himself on the bed and lay there till evening—till the door had shut gently behind the last rat to leave the sinking ship. All the clearness, the calmness were gone again. Round and round in dizzy sickening flare and clatter his thoughts whirled. Contempt, fear, loathing, blasphemy, laughter, longing: there was no end. Death was no end. There was no meaning, no refuge, no hope, no possible peace. To give up was to go to perdition: to go forward was to go mad. And even madness—he sat up with trembling lips in the twilight—madness itself was only a state, only a state. You might be bereaved, and the pain and hopelessness of that would pass. You might be cast out, betrayed, deserted, and still be you, still find solitude lovely and in a brave face a friend. But madness!—it surged in on him with all the clearness and emptiness of a dream. And he sat quite still, his hand clutching the bedclothes, his head askew, waiting for the sound of footsteps, for the presences and the voices that have their thin-walled dwelling beneath the shallow crust of consciousness. Inky blackness drifted up in wisps, in smoke before his eyes; he was powerless to move, to cry out. There was no room to turn; no air to breathe. And yet there was a low, continuous, never-varying stir as of an enormous wheel whirling in the gloom. Countless infinitesimal faces arched like glimmering pebbles the huge dim-coloured vault above his head. He heard a voice above the monstrous rustling of the wheel, clamouring, calling him back. He was hastening headlong, muttering to himself his own flat meaningless name, like a child repeating as he runs his errand. And then as if in a charmed cold pool he awoke and opened his eyes again on the gathering darkness of the great bedroom, and heard a quick, importunate, long-continued knocking on the door below, as of some one who had already knocked in vain. Cramped and heavy-limbed, he felt his way across the room and lit a candle. He stood listening awhile: his eyes fixed on the door that hung a little open. All in the room seemed acutely fantastically still. The flame burned dim, enisled in the sluggish air. He stole slowly to the door, looked out, and again listened. Again the knocking broke out, more impetuously and yet with a certain restraint and caution. Shielding the flame of his candle in the shell of his left hand, Lawford moved slowly, with chin uplifted, to the stairs. He bent forward a little, and stood motionless and drawn up, the pupils of his eyes slowly contracting and expanding as he gazed down into the carpeted vacant gloom; past the dim louring presence that had fallen back before him. His mouth opened. ‘Who’s there?’ at last he called. ‘Thank God, thank God!’ he heard Mr Bethany mutter. ‘I mustn’t call, Lawford,’ came a hurried whisper as if the old gentleman were pressing his lips to speak through the letter-box. ‘Come down and open the door; there’s a good fellow! I’ve been knocking no end of a time.’