t was crushed against the pillow as she
lay; he sought with blind and clumsy fingers for the hat pins,
extracting them gently, with infinite slowness, as though they were
fastened in the flesh. When it was free, he took the hat away and
laid it on the table. Then he stood again and watched her. She looked
asleep. The loosened hair clustered over her ears--soft silk of gold;
his hands touched it. Where a few curls fell out, and the candle-light
struck through them, the hair was pale yellow--champagne held up to
the sun.

Presently, he picked up her hand, the arm hanging a dead weight from
her shoulder, the knuckles touching the floor. His fingers closed
over the pulse to find it faintly beating. He had been a fool to let
her stand there and watch the fight. He might have known. The thought
thrust itself into his mind that he would like to meet the woman who
could watch the whole thing out, take the lust of it as he did. She
might be worth while. But this child--she was nothing more than a
child--who fainted at the sight of blood; he felt a tenderness for
her. Looking down at her as she lay on the settle before him, he could
not conceive himself actually doing her harm. She had called him a
gentleman. It seemed as if that stray phrase of hers had taken away
all the sting of the desire. She expected him to act as a gentleman;
then her expectations should be fulfilled to the letter. The woman
who moved him to the deepest force of his nature, was she who knew
the brute, not the gentleman in him, and bowed herself in supine
submission. And as he stood and watched her there, slowly creeping
back through the faintest tinges of colour to consciousness, he
little imagined that Sally was the very woman who would so yield
herself rather than lose him from her life.

At last she opened her eyes, the dazed, wondering stare that comes
after the period of forced unconsciousness.

"Where--where am I?" she whispered.

"Here--my rooms--you fainted."

"Fainted? Why?"

"I don't know;" he knelt down beside her, all tenderness and apology.
"The fight, I suppose; we were looking on at that fight outside, at
the back. I never thought--I was a brute--it never entered my head
for a moment. Here, take a sip of this water, while I go and get you
some brandy."

He put the glass in her hand, laced her cold fingers round it, and
hurried across to a cupboard in one of the oak cabinets. She was
sipping the water bravely when he returned. He to