only grope
with outstretched hands; these, in the dark room of his calamity, eluded
his mind. He groped and stumbled after them. They stole and slipped
away.

In the train going down to Tidborough the man who had accosted him
permitted himself to be more communicative. A policeman, observing
lights burning in the house at midday on Sunday, had knocked, and
getting no answer had gone in. He had found the young woman dead on her
bed, the baby dead beside her. A tumbler was on a small table and a
bottle of oxalic acid, "salts of lemon, as they call it," said the man.

Sabre stared out of the window. "Effie has killed herself. Effie has
killed herself and her baby." No, he could not fasten upon it. "Effie
has killed herself." That was what this man was telling him. It circled
and spun away from him as from the rushing train the fields circled and
spun before his vision.

He was able to attend to things and to do things. At Tidborough he took
a cab and drove home, and dismissing it at the gate was able to give
normal attention to the requirements of the morrow and instruct the man
to come out for him at half-past eleven; the inquest was at twelve.

He was able to notice things. For years turning the handle and entering
this house had been like entering an empty habitation. It struck cold
now. It was like entering a tomb. He went into the morning room. No one
was there. He went into the kitchen. No one was there. He stood still
and tried to think. Of course no one was here. Effie had killed herself.
He climbed to his room, still awkward on stairs with his leg and stick,
and went in and stood before his books and stared at them. He was still
staring when it occurred to him that it had grown dusk since he first
entered and stared. Effie had killed herself.... He went out and along
the passage to her room and entered and stared upon the bed. Effie had
been found dead. This was where they had found her--dead. No, it was
gone; he could not get hold of it. He turned and stared about the room.
Things seemed to have been taken out of the room. The man had said
something about a glass and a bottle. But there was no glass or bottle
here. They had taken things out of the room. And they had taken Effie
out of the room--picked up Effie and carried her out like a--an orgasm
of terrible emotion surged enormously within him; a bursting thing was
in his throat--No, it was gone. What phenomenon had suddenly possessed
him? What was the mat