ent to kiss her.
When at last I was certain I didn't know what to do;
I knew they'd only laugh at me if I made a scene.
I thought if I held my tongue and pretended not to see,
everything would come right. I made up my mind to get
him away quietly, without quarrelling. Oh, if you only
knew what I've suffered!"

Then he told me again of his asking Strickland to go.
He chose his moment carefully, and tried to make his request
sound casual; but he could not master the trembling of his voice;
and he felt himself that into words that he wished to
seem jovial and friendly there crept the bitterness of his
jealousy. He had not expected Strickland to take him up on
the spot and make his preparations to go there and then;
above all, he had not expected his wife's decision to go with him.
I saw that now he wished with all his heart that he had held
his tongue. He preferred the anguish of jealousy to the
anguish of separation.

"I wanted to kill him, and I only made a fool of myself."

He was silent for a long time, and then he said what I knew
was in his mind.

"If I'd only waited, perhaps it would have gone all right.
I shouldn't have been so impatient. Oh, poor child,
what have I driven her to?"

I shrugged my shoulders, but did not speak. I had no sympathy
for Blanche Stroeve, but knew that it would only pain poor
Dirk if I told him exactly what I thought of her.

He had reached that stage of exhaustion when he could not stop
talking. He went over again every word of the scene.
Now something occurred to him that he had not told me before;
now he discussed what he ought to have said instead of what he
did say; then he lamented his blindness. He regretted that he had
done this, and blamed himself that he had omitted the other.
It grew later and later, and at last I was as tired as he.

"What are you going to do now?" I said finally.

"What can I do? I shall wait till she sends for me."

"Why don't you go away for a bit?"

"No, no; I must be at hand when she wants me."

For the present he seemed quite lost. He had made no plans.
When I suggested that he should go to bed he said he could not
sleep; he wanted to go out and walk about the streets till day.
He was evidently in no state to be left alone.
I persuaded him to stay the night with me, and I put him into my
own bed. I had a divan in my sitting-room, and could very
well sleep on that. He was by now so worn out that he could
not resist my firmness