er feel it . . . how closely that had been observed, that she could
take a handkerchief from his pocket as from a piece of furniture. It was
true that Neale and she knew each other now till there was no hidden
corner, no mystery, no possibility of a single unexpected thing between
them. She had not realized it, but it was true. How could she not have
seen that his presence left her wholly unmoved, indifferent now? But how
could she have known it, so gradual had been the coming of satiety,
until she had to contrast with it this fierce burning response to a
fierce and new emotion? . . .

Had she thought "indifference"? and "satiety"? Of whom had she been
thinking? Not of _Neale_! Was that what had come of the great hour on
Rocca di Papa? _Was that what human beings were?_

She had gone further this time, but now she was brought up short by the
same blankness at the name of Neale, the same impossibility to think at
all. She could not think about Neale tonight. All that must be put off
till she was more like herself, till she was more steady. She was
reeling now, with shock after shock; Cousin Hetty's death, 'Gene's
dreadful secret, the discovery no longer to be evaded of what Vincent
Marsh meant and was. . . .

She felt a sudden hurried impatient haste to be with Vincent again, to
feel again the choking throb when she first saw him, the constant scared
uncertainty of what he might say, what she might feel, what they both
might do, from one moment to the next . . . she could forget, in those
fiery and potent draughts, everything, all this that was so hard and
painful and that she could not understand and that was such a torment to
try to understand. Everything would be swept away except . . .

As though she had whirled suddenly about to see what was lurking there
behind her, she whirled about and found the thought, "But I ought to
tell someone, tell the police, that I saw 'Gene Powers running away
after he had killed the man who wanted to take his wife from him."

Instantly there spoke out a bitter voice, "No, I shall tell no one.
'Gene has known how to keep Nelly. Let him have her for all his life."

Another voice answered, "Frank's mother . . . his mother!"

And both of these were drowned by a tide of sickness as the recollection
came upon her of that dreadful haste, those horrible labored breaths.

She sat up with a great sweeping gesture of her arms, as though she must
fight for air. The little room seemed palpab