mind, and with all his muscles
working, ferociously performing it. He felt immensely well. He felt
enormously fit. The knocking was done in his brain. His mind was
tingling clear. "I'll cram ... I'll take ... I'll _bash_ ... I'll cram
the letter down his throat."

He was arrived! He was here! "Into my hands! Into my hands." He passed
into the office and swiftly as he could go up the stairs. He encountered
no one. He came to Twyning's door and put his hand upon the latch.
Immediately, and enormously, so that for a moment he was forced to
pause, the pulse broke out anew in his head. Knock, knock, knock. Knock,
knock, knock. Curse the thing! Never mind. In! In! At him! At him!

He went in.

III

On his right, as he entered, a fire was burning in the grate and it
struck him, with the inconsequent insistence of trifles in enormous
issues, how chilly for the time of year the day had been and how icily
cold his own house. On the left, at the far end of the room, Twyning sat
at his desk. He was crouched at his desk. His head was buried in his
hands. At his elbows, vivid upon the black expanse of the table, lay a
torn envelope, dull red.

Sabre shut the door and leant his stick against the wall by the fire. He
took the letter from his pocket and walked across and stood over
Twyning. Twyning had not heard him. He stood over him and looked down
upon him. Knock, knock, knock. Curse the thing. There was Twyning's
neck, that brown strip between his collar and his head, that in a minute
he would catch him by.... No, seated thus he would catch his hair and
wrench him back and cram his meal upon him. Knock, knock, knock. Curse
the thing!

He said heavily, "Twyning. Twyning, I've come to speak to you about your
son."

Twyning slightly twisted his face in his hands so as to glance up at
Sabre. His face was red. He said in an odd, thick voice, "Oh, Sabre,
Sabre, have you heard?"

Sabre said, "Heard?"

"He's killed. My Harold. My boy. My boy, Harold. Oh, Sabre, Sabre, my
boy, my boy, my Harold!"

He began to sob; his shoulders heaving.

Sabre gave a sound that was just a whimper. Oh, irony of fate! Oh,
cynicism incredible in its malignancy! Oh, cumulative touch! To deliver
him this his enemy to strike, and to present him for the knife thus
already stricken!

No sound in all the range of sounds whereby man can express emotion was
possible to express this emotion that now surcharged him. This was no
pain of man's devising.