hair, till then unnoticed; in that supreme moment he was aware of a
sudden likeness to her mother; but more terrible than all, there seemed
to be a nameless sympathetic resemblance that the guilty pair had to
each other in gesture and movement as of some unhallowed relationship
beyond his ken. He knew not how long he stood there without breath,
without reflection, without one connected thought. He saw her suddenly
put her hand on the handle of the door. He knew that in another moment
they would pass almost before him. He made a convulsive effort to move,
with an inward cry to God for support, and succeeded in staggering with
outstretched palms against the wall, down the staircase, and blindly
forward through the hall to the front door. As yet he had been able to
formulate only one idea--to escape before them, for it seemed to him
that their contact meant the ruin of them both, of that house, of all
that was near to him--a catastrophe that struck blindly at his whole
visible world. He had reached the door and opened it at the moment that
the handle of the kitchen-door was turned. He mechanically fell back
behind the open door that hid him, while it let the cruel light glimmer
for a moment on their clasped figures. The door slipped from his
nerveless fingers and swung to with a dull sound. Crouching still in the
corner, he heard the quick rush of hurrying feet in the darkness, saw
the door open and Demorest glide out--saw her glance hurriedly after
him, close the door, and involve herself and him in the blackness of the
hall. Her dress almost touched him in his corner; he could feel the
near scent of her clothes, and the air stirred by her figure retreating
towards the stairs; could hear the unlocking of a door above and the
voice of her mother from the landing, his wife's reply, the slow fading
of her footsteps on the stairs and overhead, the closing of a door, and
all was quiet again. Still stooping, he groped for the handle of the
door, opened it, and the next moment reeled like a drunken man down the
steps into the street.