“He’ll be here soon,” she said cheerfully, to Louis in the bedroom.

“If he isn’t—­” moaned Louis, and stopped.

She gave him some brandy, against his will.  Then, taking his wrist to feel it, she felt his fingers close on her wrist, as if for aid.  And she sat thus on the bed holding his hand in the gloom of the lowered gas.

IV

His weakness and his dependence on her gave her a feeling of kind superiority.  And also her own physical well-being was such that she could not help condescending towards him.  She cared for a trustful, helpless little dog.  She thought a great deal about him; she longed ardently to be of assistance to him; she had an acute sense of her responsibility and her duty.  Yet, notwithstanding all that, her brain was perhaps chiefly occupied with herself and her own attitude towards existence.  She became mentally and imaginatively active to an intense degree.  She marvelled at existence as she had never marvelled before, and while seeming suddenly to understand it better she was far more than ever baffled by it.  Was it credible that the accident of a lad losing control of a horse could have such huge and awful consequences on two persons utterly unconnected with the lad?  A few seconds sooner, a few seconds later—­and naught would have occurred to Louis, but he must needs be at exactly a certain spot at exactly a certain instant, with the result that now she was in torture!  If this, if that, if the other—­Louis would have been well and gay at that very moment, instead of a broken organism humiliated on a bed and clinging to her like a despairing child.

The rapidity and variety of events in her life again startled her, and once more she went over them.  The disappearance of the bank-notes was surely enough in itself.  But on the top of that fell the miracle of her love affair.  Her marriage was like a dream of romance to her, untrue, incredible.  Then there was the terrific episode of Julian on the previous night.  One would have supposed that after that the sensationalism of events would cease.  But, no!  The unforeseeable had now occurred, something which reduced all else to mere triviality.

And yet what had in fact occurred?  Acquaintances, in recounting her story, would say that she had married her mistress’s nephew, that there had been trouble between Louis and Julian about some bank-notes, and that Louis had had a bicycle accident.  Naught more!  A most ordinary chronicle!  And if he died now, they would say that Louis had died within a month of the wedding and how sad it was!  Husbands indubitably do die, young wives indubitably are transformed into widows—­daily event, indeed!...  She seemed to perceive the deep, hidden meaning of life.  There were three Rachels in her—­one who pitied Louis, one who pitied herself, and one who looked on and impartially comprehended.  The last was scarcely unhappy—­only fervently absorbed in the prodigious wonder of the hour.