The door opened. He felt violently startled; yet there was no movement perceptible. Vera entered, ostensibly for an autograph-album into which she was going to copy a drawing from the _London Opinion_, really to see what her father was doing. He did not move a muscle. He only longed intensely for his daughter to go out of the room, so that he could let go. Vera went out of the drawing-room humming to herself. Apparently she had not even glanced at her father. In reality, she had observed him closely. “He is sitting with his head in his hands,” she said to her mother. Beatrice replied: “I’m glad he’s nothing else to do.” “I should think he’s pitying himself,” said Vera. “He’s a good one at it,” answered Beatrice. Gwen came forward and took hold of her mother’s skirt, looking up anxiously. “What is he doing, Mam?” she asked. “Nothing,” replied her mother—“nothing; only sitting in the drawing-room.” “But what has he _been_ doing?” persisted the anxious child. “Nothing—nothing that I can tell _you_. He’s only spoilt all our lives.” The little girl stood regarding her mother In the greatest distress and perplexity. “But what will he do, Mam?” she asked. “Nothing. Don’t bother. Run and play with Marjory now. Do you want a nice plum?” She took a yellow plum from the table. Gwen accepted it without a word. She was too much perplexed. “What do you say?” asked her mother. “Thank you,” replied the child, turning away. Siegmund sighed with relief when he was again left alone. He twisted in his chair, and sighed again, trying to drive out the intolerable clawing irritability from his belly. “Ah, this is horrible!” he said. He stiffened his muscles to quieten them. “I’ve never been like this before. What is the matter?” he asked himself. But the question died out immediately. It seemed useless and sickening to try and answer it. He began to cast about for an alleviation. If he could only do something, or have something he wanted, it would be better. “What do I want?” he asked himself, and he anxiously strove to find this out. Everything he suggested to himself made him sicken with weariness or distaste: the seaside, a foreign land, a fresh life that he had often dreamed of, farming in Canada. “I should be just the same there,” he answered himself. “Just the same sickening feeling there that I want nothing.” “Helena!” he suggested to himself, trembling. But he only felt a deeper horror. The thought of her made him shrink convulsively. “I can’t endure this,” he said. If this is the case, I had better be dead. To have no want, no desire—that is death, to begin with.” He rested awhile after this. The idea of death alone seemed entertaining. Then, “Is there really nothing I could turn to?” he asked himself. To him, in that state of soul, it seemed there was not. “Helena!” he suggested again, appealingly testing himself. “Ah, no!” he cried, drawing sharply back, as from an approaching touch upon a raw place.