aint odour of her heavy cloth cloak, just
damped by the few drops of rain that had reached it, still hung in the
air. With the slightest effort of memory, her voice came back to his
ears, now gentle, now gravely reproachful, but at last ringing like
steel on steel in her generous anger. She had been present, in that
room, in his power, during more than twenty minutes, and now she was
gone and would never come again.

He had done the most rash, inconsequent, and uselessly bad deed that
had ever suggested itself to his imagination, and now that all was
over he wondered how he could have been at once so foolish, so brutal,
and so daring. Perhaps five years of slavery in Africa had unsettled
his mind; he had heard of several similar cases and his own might be
another; he had read of officers who had lost all sense of
responsibility after months of fighting in the tropics, perhaps from
having borne responsibility too long and unshared, who had come back,
after doing brave and honourable work, to find themselves morally
crippled for civilised life, and no longer able to distinguish right
from wrong or truth from falsehood.

It had all happened quickly but illogically, as events follow each
other in dreams, from the moment when he had gone to the Convent
hospital with Monsignor Saracinesca till the brougham drove away in
the dark, taking Angela back. He understood for the first time how men
whom every one supposed to be of average uprightness could commit
atrocious crimes; he shuddered to think what must have happened if a
mere chance had not changed his mood, making him ask Angela's
forgiveness and prompting him to let her go. She had touched him, that
was all. If her voice had sounded only a little differently at the
great moment, if her eyes had not looked at him with just that
expression, if her attitude had been a shade less resolute, what might
not have happened? For the conviction that he could force her to be
his wife if he chose to keep her a prisoner had taken possession of
him suddenly, when all his arguments had failed. It had come with
irresistible strength: the simplicity of the plan had been axiomatic,
its immediate execution had been in his power, and while she was
within the circle of his senses, his passion had been elemental and
overwhelming. He tried to excuse himself with that; men in such cases
had done worse things by far, and at least Angela had been safe from
violence.

But his own words accused hi