ad
hung down over the bench, was wet and sticky from grasping handfuls of
dead leaves.

It was past eleven o'clock. Louise wakened with a start, and, at the
sight of his muddy, dishevelled dress, rose to her elbow.

"What is it? What's the matter? Where have you been?"

He stood at the foot of the bed, and looked at her. The loose masses of
her hair, which had come unplaited, arrested his attention: he had
never seemed to know before how brutally black it was. With his eyes
fixed on it, he repeated what Krafft had told him.

Louise lay with the back of one hand on her forehead, and watched him
from under it. When he had finished, she said: "So Heinz has raked up
that old story again, has he?"

Maurice had expected--yes, what had he expected?--anger, perhaps, or
denial, or, it might be, vituperation; only not the almost impartial
composure with which she listened to him. For he had not spared her a
word.

"Is that all you've got to say?" he cried, suffocated with doubt. "Then
you ... you admit it?"

"Admit it! Maurice! Are you crazy?--to wake me up for this! It happened
YEARS ago!"

His recoil of disgust was too marked to be ignored. Louise half sat up
in bed again, supporting herself on one hand. Her nightgown was not
buttoned; he saw to the waist a strip of the white skin beneath, saw,
too, how a long black strand of her hair fell in and lay on it.

"You won't tell me you didn't know from the first there had been ...
something between Heinz and me?" she cried, roused to defend
herself.--"And look here, Maurice, as he told you that, it's my turn
now. I'll tell you why!" And sitting still more upright, she gave a
reason which made him grasp the knob of the bed-post so fiercely that
it came away in his hand. He threw it into a corner.

"Louise! ... you! to take such words on your tongue! Is there no shame
left in you?" His throat was dry and narrow.

"Shame! You only mean the need for concealment. Before you had got me,
there was no talk of shame."

"Do you know what you're saying?"

"Oh, that's your eternal cry!" and, suddenly spurred to anger, she rose
again. "I know--yes, I know! Do you think I'm a fool? Why must you
alone be so innocent! Why should you alone not know that I was only
jealous of a single person, and that was Krafft?"

Maurice turned away. In the comparative darkness behind the screen, he
sat down on the sofa, put his arms on the table, and his head on his
arms. He was exhausted, and f