said.

III

She looked up, finding herself alone. She did not remember when or how
he had left the room, or how long afterward she had sat there. The fire
still smouldered on the hearth, but the slant of sunlight had left the
wall.

Her first conscious thought was that she had not broken her word, that
she had fulfilled the very letter of their bargain. There had been no
crying out, no vain appeal to the past, no attempt at temporizing or
evasion. She had marched straight up to the guns.

Now that it was over, she sickened to find herself alive. She looked
about her, trying to recover her hold on reality. Her identity seemed to
be slipping from her, as it disappears in a physical swoon. "This is my
room--this is my house," she heard herself saying. Her room? Her house?
She could almost hear the walls laugh back at her.

She stood up, a dull ache in every bone. The silence of the room
frightened her. She remembered, now, having heard the front door close
a long time ago: the sound suddenly re-echoed through her brain. Her
husband must have left the house, then--her HUSBAND? She no longer knew
in what terms to think: the simplest phrases had a poisoned edge. She
sank back into her chair, overcome by a strange weakness. The clock
struck ten--it was only ten o'clock! Suddenly she remembered that
she had not ordered dinner... or were they dining out that evening?
DINNER--DINING OUT--the old meaningless phraseology pursued her! She
must try to think of herself as she would think of some one else, a some
one dissociated from all the familiar routine of the past, whose wants
and habits must gradually be learned, as one might spy out the ways of a
strange animal...

The clock struck another hour--eleven. She stood up again and walked
to the door: she thought she would go up stairs to her room. HER room?
Again the word derided her. She opened the door, crossed the narrow
hall, and walked up the stairs. As she passed, she noticed Westall's
sticks and umbrellas: a pair of his gloves lay on the hall table. The
same stair-carpet mounted between the same walls; the same old French
print, in its narrow black frame, faced her on the landing. This visual
continuity was intolerable. Within, a gaping chasm; without, the same
untroubled and familiar surface. She must get away from it before she
could attempt to think. But, once in her room, she sat down on the
lounge, a stupor creeping over her...

Gradually her vision cle