He paused.  Rachel sobbed.

“Of course,” he continued, with savage quietude, “you may say I might have forced you to listen to me this last week.  I might.  But why should I?  Why should I beg and pray?  If you didn’t know the whole story a week ago, is it my fault?  I’m not one to ask twice.  I can’t go on my knees and beg to be listened to.  Some fellows could perhaps, but not me!”

Rachel was overwhelmed.  The discovery that it was she herself, Pharisaical and unyielding, who had been immediately responsible for the disappearance of the bank-notes almost dazed her.  And simultaneously the rehabilitation of her idol drowned her in bliss.  She was so glad to be at fault, so ravished at being able to respect him again, that the very ecstasy of existing seemed likely to put an end to her existence.  Her physical sensations were such as she might have experienced if her heart had swiftly sunk away out of her bosom and left an empty space there that gasped.  She glanced up at Louis.

“I’m so sorry!” she breathed.

Louis did not move, nor did his features relax in the slightest.

With one hand raised in appeal, surrender, abandonment and the other on the arm of her chair, and her work slipping to the floor, she half rose towards him.

“You can’t tell how sorry I am!” she murmured.  Her eyes were liquid.  “Louis!”

“And well you may be, if you’ll excuse me saying so!” answered Louis frigidly.

He was confirmed in his illusory but tremendous grievance.  The fundamental lack of generosity in him was exposed.  Inexperienced though he was in women, he saw in Rachel then, just as if he had been twenty years older, the woman who lightly imagines that the past can be wiped out with a soft tone, an endearment, a tear, a touching appeal.  He would not let her off so easily.  She had horribly lacerated his dignity for a week—­he could recall every single hurt—­and he was not going to allow himself to recover in a minute.  His dignity required a gradual convalescence.  He was utterly unaffected by her wistful charm.

Rachel moved her head somewhat towards his, and then hesitated.  The set hardness of his face was incredible to her.  Her head began to swim.  She thought, “I shall really die if this continues.”

“Louis—­don’t!” she besought him plaintively.

He walked deliberately away and nervously played with an “ornament” on the sideboard.

“And let me tell you another thing,” said he slowly.  “If you think I came back to-night because I couldn’t do without you, you’re mistaken.  I’m going out again at once.”

She said to herself, “He has killed me!” The room circled round her, gathering speed, and Louis with it.  The emptiness in her bosom was intolerable.

II

Louis saw her face turning paler and paler, till it was, really, almost as white as the table-cloth.  She fell back into the chair, her arms limp and lifeless.