He spoke with his chin in his hand and his eyes staring at the dark and distant sea. “An operation,” he said, “might cure me.” Her thoughts, it became apparent, had been travelling through some broken and unbeautiful country roughly parallel with the course of his own. “But need there be an operation?” she thought aloud. “Are they ever any good?” “I could die,” he admitted bitterly, and repented as he spoke. There had been times, he remembered, when she had said and done sweet and gallant things, poor soul! poor broken companion! And now she had fallen into a darkness far greater than his. He had feared that he had hurt her, and then when he saw that she was not hurt, and that she scrutinized his face eagerly as if she weighed the sincerity of his words, his sense of utter loneliness was completed. Over his mean drama of pain and debasement in its close atmosphere buzzing with flies, it was as if some gigantic and remorseless being watched him as a man of science might hover over some experiment, and marked his life and all his world. “You are alone,” this brooding witness counselled, “you are utterly alone. _Curse God and die._” It seemed a long time before Mr. Huss answered this imagined voice, and when he answered it he spoke as if he addressed his wife alone. “_No_,” he said with a sudden decisiveness. “No. I will face that operation.... We are ill and our hearts are faint. Neither for you, dear, nor for me must our story finish in this fashion. No. I shall go on to the end.” “And have your operation here?” “In this house. It is by far the most convenient place, as things are.” “You may die here!” “Well, I shall die fighting.” “Leaving me here with Mrs. Croome.” His temper broke under her reply. “Leaving you here with Mrs. Croome,” he said harshly. He got up. “I can eat nothing,” he repeated, and dropped back sullenly into the horsehair armchair. There was a long silence, and then he heard the little, almost mouselike, movements of his wife as she began her meal. For a while he had forgotten the dull ache within him, but now, glowing and fading and glowing, it made its way back into his consciousness. He was helpless and perplexed; he had not meant to quarrel. He had hurt this poor thing who had been his love and companion; he had bullied her. His clogged brain could think of nothing to set matters right. He stared with dull eyes at a world utterly hateful to him. CHAPTER THE THIRD THE THREE VISITORS § 1 While this unhappy conversation was occurring at Sundering-on-Sea, three men were discussing the case of Mr. Huss very earnestly over a meatless but abundant lunch in the bow window of a club that gives upon the trees and sunshine of Carlton Gardens. Lobster salad engaged them, and the ice in the jug of hock cup clinked very pleasantly as they replenished their glasses.