And Gerard? During the hours of solitude, when the confused impressions of past years had bitter opportunities of crystallisation, he had suffered the shock of the discovery that their present friendship was but the simulacrum of the old. A quaint fancy figured it forth in his mind. Once clad in shells of armour, as most men are clad, they had stood together, gauntleted hand in hand, for mutual defence and common purpose. Long since they had crept out, donned other mail, but still stood the hollow figures in futile clasp, somewhat of a mockery. And a woman came and led them, now and then, each into their old habitations, whereupon they moved the hands up and down, in spasmodic greeting. Conceits aside, something had come between them. It was not Irene, he thought, for she had kept them together, making her boast of their perfect friendship. Was the phenomenon negative, merely the cessation of mutual attraction? He could not tell. It was sufficient dismay to find that, at this time of peril, there were many other men with whose companionship he could have borne sooner than with Gerard’s. But rather than allow Irene to suspect this, he would have undergone any tortures of isolation. So he awaited his trial in proud loneliness. And from Minna, not a sign of solicitude. CHAPTER XII When a human being has not slept for five or six nights, especially if that human being is a woman of romantic temperament, many queer things are bound to happen. The sensory nerves become susceptible to impression from all influences that exist, and from many that do not. The head swells to an enormous size with its unrelieved store. Bells and music and the voice of an invisible person reading aloud an interminable and unintelligible book throb on the tympanum. Men and women have an uncomfortable way of growing suddenly large and then suddenly small before the eyes. The flesh seems disintegrated into elemental and quivering molecules. A sixth sense riotously develops, and makes the sufferer aware of a murderous devil dogging the footsteps. Under these conditions, to join in the small-talk of a family dinner table, do fancy work in the drawing-room and play Grieg on the piano to a virtuoso, argues a considerable reserve fund of moral power. And this is found more commonly in women than in men. Until the day of Hugh’s trial at the Old Bailey, Minna had successfully concealed her state from the friendly eyes of the Bebros. She looked wretchedly ill, but a cunning shade of carmine relieved her haggardness and caused her to appear nothing more than interestingly afflicted. When the pains of hell gat more closely round about her, she forced her lips into a photographic smile, thereby impressing the motherly Mrs. Bebro with a sense of her patience under tribulation. It was a gruesome comedy.