he pillows. His eyes
glittered in a head like a modelling in clay; his arms stirred
ceaselessly with weaving fingers. Howat could almost feel Ludowika's
hatred striking at him across the bed. He smiled at her, and she faced
him with an expression of stony unresponse. He thought luxuriantly of
her in his arms, with the rain beating on the store house roof; he
caught the odours of the damp, heaped merchandise, the distant clamour
in the casting shed. He had a brutal impulse to lean forward and remind
her of what had occurred, of the fact that she was his; he wanted to
fling it against her present detachment, to mock her with it. Then he
would crush her against his heart. Felix Winscombe raised up on an
elbow, distorting the row of sanguinary Indians.

Ludowika moved to the edge of the bed, and put a firm, graceful arm
about him. A grey shadow of pain fell on Mr. Winscombe's features. The
silence was absolute. He seemed to be waiting in an attitude of mingled
dread and resolution. He whispered an unintelligible period, the pain on
his face sharpened, and he released himself from Ludowika's support. She
sank back on her chair, gazing at her husband with wide, concerned eyes.

Slowly the lines in his face deepened, and a fine, gleaming sweat
started out on his brow. His face contorted in a spasm of voiceless
suffering, and he drew a stiff hand down either arm. Howat watched him
in a species of strained curiosity, with a suspension of breath.
Something, he felt, should be done to relieve the oppression of agony
gathering on Felix Winscombe's countenance, but a corresponding sense of
complete helplessness settled like a leaden coffin about him. The other
became unrecognizable; his face seemed to be set in an unnatural grin.
His head drew back on a thin, corded neck, and a faint gasping for air
stirred in the shadows. Even Howat felt the pain to be unendurable, and
Ludowika, white as milk, had risen to her feet. She stood with a hand
half raised beneath a fringed corner of the India shawl.

It was incredible that the sufferer's agony should increase, but it was
apparent that it did remorselessly. All humanity was obliterated in an
excruciating spasm over which streamed some meagre tears. Mr.
Winscombe's arms raised and dropped; and, suddenly relaxed, he slipped
down upon the pillows. Immediately the torment vanished from his
countenance; it became peaceful, released. The familiar mockery of the
mouth came back. The head, slig