usiness of unlocking
the door.

At his abrupt entrance, Louise concealed something in a drawer, and
turned the key on it. But Maurice was too self-absorbed to heed her
action, or consciously to hear her exclamation at his haggard
appearance. He shut the door, crossed to where she was standing, and,
without speaking, pulled her nearer to the lamp. By its light, he
scanned her face with a desperate eagerness.

"What is it? What's the matter?"

At the sound of her voice, the tension of the past hour relaxed. He let
his head fall on her shoulder, and shut his eyes, swaying as she swayed
beneath his weight.

"Forgive me! ... forgive me!"

"You've been drinking, I think." But she held still under his grasp.

"Yes, I have. Louise! ... tell me it's a horrible mistake. Help me, you
MUST help me!"

"How can I help you, if you won't tell me what the matter is?" She
believed him to be half drunk, and spoke as to a drunken person,
without meaning much.

"Yes, yes ... I will. Only give me time."

But he postponed beginning. Leaning more heavily on her, he pressed his
lips to the stuff of her dress. He would have liked to sleep, just
where he was; indeed, he was invaded by the desire to sleep, never
again to unclose his eyes. But she grew restless, and tried to draw her
shoulder away. Then he looked at her, and a feverish stream of words,
half self-recriminative, half in self-defence, burst from his lips. But
they had little to do with the matter in hand, and were
incomprehensible to her. "It has been a terrible nightmare. And only
you can drive it away." As he spoke, he looked, with a sudden
suspicion, right into her eyes. But they neither faltered nor grew
uneasy.

"It will turn out to be nothing, I know," she said coldly. "You're
always devising some new way of tormenting me."

Her words roused him. Fumbling in his pocket, he drew from it Krafft's
letter. "Is that nothing? Read it and tell me. I found it at home on my
table."

Louise took it with unmoved indifference. But directly she saw whose
handwriting it was, her face grew grave and attentive. She looked back
from the envelope to him, to see what he was thinking, to learn how
much he knew. In spite of his roughness there was a hungry, imploring
look in his eyes, an appeal to her to put him out of misery, and in the
way he desired. And, as always, before such a look, her own face
hardened.

"Read it! What he dares to write to me!"

Slowly, as if it were imp