Triona turned to the table by the window and stared out into the rain-swept garden, and the vision of a girl horror-stricken, frozen, dead, rose before his eyes. Presently he said, his back to the room: “You mean kindly and generously. But it’s impossible to go back. The man, Alexis Triona, whom she loved, has melted away. He never had real existence. In his place she sees a stranger, one John Briggs, whom she loathes like Hell—I’ve seen it in her eyes. She feels as if she had been contaminated by contact with some unclean beast.” Olifant sprang from his chair and, catching him by the shoulder, swung him round. “You infernal fool, she doesn’t!” “I know better,” said Triona. “I’m beginning to think I know _her_ better,” Olifant retorted. “Well—that is possible,” said Triona. “You’re of her caste. I’m not. I’ve pretended to be, and that’s how I’ve come to grief. You’re a good fellow, Olifant, straight, just like her; and neither of you can understand the man who runs crooked.” “Crooked be damned!” exclaimed Olifant. But all his condemnation of self-accusing epithets could not dissuade the fate-driven young man from his purpose. Triona repeated the original intention of his visit: to put Olifant in complete possession of facts which Olivia’s pride might not allow her to reveal, and to charge him, thus equipped, with Olivia’s immediate welfare. At last he burst out again: “Man alive! Don’t torture me. All the devils in Hell are doing it, and they’re enough for any man. Have some imagination! Think what it would mean to her to have me crawling about in her path for ever and ever. When love is dead it’s dead. There’s no resurrection. She loved Alexis Triona. Won’t you ever understand? He’s dead. The love’s dead. If I stayed with her, I should be a kind of living corpse to which she’s tied. So I’m going away—out of her life altogether.” “And where are you going?” “Just out into the spaciousness of the wide world,” replied Triona with a gesture. He looked suddenly at his wrist watch. “Good Lord!” he cried. “I’ve only just time to catch my train. Good-bye.” “Wait a minute,” said Olifant. “Do you think it fair on a woman? While you disappear for ever into spaciousness she’ll remain none the less married—tied to you for the rest of her life.” “Oh, don’t let her worry about that!” cried Triona. “I’ll soon be dead.” He sped to the door. Olifant clutched at him and for a while held fast. “Never mind trains. You’ll stay here to-day. I can’t let you go—in this hysterical state.” But Triona wrenched himself free. A one-armed man is at a physical disadvantage in a struggle with a wiry two-armed opponent. Olifant was pushed staggering back, and, before he could recover himself, Triona had flashed from the room, and a moment later the clang of the front door told him he had left the house.