Sheila gently closed the door and sat down on the bed. He heard
her softly crying, he heard the bed shaken with her sobs. But a
slow glance towards the steady candle-flames restrained him. He
let her cry on alone. When she had become a little more composed
he stood up. 'You have had no dinner,' he managed to blurt out at
last, 'you will be faint. It's useless to talk, even to think,
any more to-night. Leave me to myself for a while. Don't look at
me any more. Perhaps I can sleep: perhaps if I sleep it will come
right again. When the servants are gone up, I will come down.
Just let me have some--some medical book, or other; and some more
candles. Don't think, Sheila; don't even think!'

Sheila paid him no attention for a while. 'You tell me not to
think,' she began, in a low, almost listless voice; 'why--I
wonder I am in my right mind. And "eat"! How can you have the
heartlessness to suggest it? You don't seem in the least to
realize what you say. You seem to have lost all--all
consciousness. I quite agree, it is useless for me to burden you
with my company while you are in your present condition of mind.
But you will at least promise me that you won't take any further
steps in this awful business.' She could not, try as she would,
bring herself again to look at him. She rose softly, paused a
moment with sidelong eyes, then turned deliberately towards the
door, 'What, what have I done to deserve all this?'

>From behind her that voice, so extraordinarily like--and yet in
some vague fashion more arresting, more resonant than her
husband's, broke incredibly out once more. 'You will please leave
the key, Sheila. I am ill, but I am not yet in the padded room.