stage-managed our bewilderment, she continued: "Don't you know
that is why we were all called Protestants? That is the pencil draft
of the Protest they drew up. You can see the signatures of Martin
Luther, and Martin Bucer, and Zwingli, and Ludwig the
Courageous. . . ."

I may have got some of the names wrong, but I know that Luther
and Bucer were there. And her animation continued and I was
glad. She was better and she was out of mischief. She continued,
looking up into Captain Ashburnham's eyes: "It's because of that
piece of paper that you're honest, sober, industrious, provident,
and clean-lived. If it weren't for that piece of paper you'd be like
the Irish or the Italians or the Poles, but particularly the Irish. . . ."

And she laid one finger upon Captain Ashburnham' s wrist.

I was aware of something treacherous, something frightful,
something evil in the day. I can't define it and can't find a simile
for it. It wasn't as if a snake had looked out of a hole. No, it was as
if my heart had missed a beat. It was as if we were going to run
and cry out; all four of us in separate directions, averting our
heads. In Ashburnham's face I know that there was absolute panic.
I was horribly frightened and then I discovered that the pain in my
left wrist was caused by Leonora's clutching it:

"I can't stand this," she said with a most extraordinary passion; "I
must get out of this." I was horribly frightened. It came to me for
a moment, though I hadn't time to think it, that she must be a
madly jealous woman--jealous of Florence and Captain
Ashburnham, of all people in the world! And it was a panic in