didn't find--Chugwun!"

"Yes."

"You see the name in the paper?"

"Yes."

"You didn't aarpen t'see it on the boards outside the theater?"

"No."

She was wide awake and quite sober now. But her limbs were trembling
again, and her eyes seemed preposterously large as they stared up at
him from the white face. "Will!" And she spoke fast and piteously;
"don't look at me like this. What's come to you? Why do you ask me
such a pack of questions?" And she tried to laugh. "At such a time of
night!"

"Bide a bit, my lass. I'm just thinking."

Where had the thoughts come from?--out of blank space?--from nowhere?
Yet here they were, filling his head, multiplying, expanding, making
his blood rattle like boiling water in a tube as it rushed up to
nourish their monstrous growth.

"Will, let go my shoulders. You hurt. Get into the bed--and be
sensible. I'll answer all questions in the morning."

"No, I think I'll have the answers now."

He went on questioning her, and his hands growing heavier crushed her
shoulders so that she thought he would break the bones and joints.

"What train did you come up by this morning?"

"The nine o'clock."

"What! D'you mean you went right across from North Ride to Rodchurch
Road?"

"Oh, no. I caught it at Manninglea Cross."

"Did you, then? An' s'pose I was to tell you the nine o'clock don't
stop at Manninglea Cross!"

"Will! Loosen your hands. It does stop--it did stop there this
morning."

"Yes, it did stop--and so it does all mornings. But a fat lot you know
about it. And for why? You weren't in it."

"I was--I really was. Will--don't go on so cruel."

"Oh, but I _am_ going on." He had lowered his face close to hers, and
his hot breath beat upon her cold cheeks. "Now, give me the
explanation of what you let slip about going through so much these
last two days. What was the precise sense o' _that_?"

"I only meant I've been so anxious."

"Yes, but yer bin anxious best part o' four weeks. What was the mighty
difference in yesterday or day before?"

"I didn't mean any difference. I scarce knew what I was saying--or
what I'm saying now."

"Oh! Just a remark let fall without a scrap o' sense in it!"

Staring up at him, it was as if she saw the face of a stranger. His
eyes were half closed and glittering fiercely; his lips protruded as
if grotesquely pouting to express scorn, and on each side of the
distended nostrils a deep vertical wrinkle showed like the blackened
g