Elizabeth made a wavering step forward. The light danced on the white robe, and not only on the robe. All the room was full of small dancing lights. Elizabeth put her hand behind her and felt for the edge of the mantelpiece. She could not find it. Everything was shaking. She swung half round, and all the dancing lights flashed in her eyes as she fell forwards.

CHAPTER XXIV. THE LOST NAME

WHEN Elizabeth came to herself, the room was full of mist. Through the mist, she saw David's face, and quite suddenly in these few minutes it had grown years older.

He spoke. He seemed a long way off.

“Drink this.”

“What is it?” said Elizabeth faintly.

“Water.”

Elizabeth raised herself a little and drank. The faintness passed. She became aware that the collar of her dress was unfastened, and she sat up and began to fasten it.

David got up, too.

“I am all right.”

There was no mist before Elizabeth 's eyes now. They saw clearly, quite, quite clearly. She looked at David, and David's face was grey-old and grey. So it had come. Now in this hour of physical weakness. The thing she dreaded.

To her own surprise, she felt no dread now. Only a great weariness. What could she say? What was she to say? All seemed useless-not worth while. But then there was David's face, his grey, old face. She must do her best-not for her own sake, but for David's.

She wondered a little that it should hurt him so much. It was not as though he loved her, or had ever loved her. Only of course this was a thing to cut a man, down to the very quick of his pride and his self-respect. It was that-of course it was that.

Whilst she was thinking, David spoke. He was standing by the table fingering the piece of string that lay there.

“ Elizabeth, do you know why you fainted?” he said.

“Yes,” said Elizabeth, and said no more.

A sort of shudder passed over David Blake.

“Then it 's true,” he said in a voice that was hardly a voice at all. There was a sound, and there were words. But it was not like a man speaking. It was like a long, quick breath of pain.

“Yes,” said Elizabeth. “It is true, David.”

There was a very great pity in her eyes.

“Oh, my God!” said David, and he sat down by the table and put his head in his hands. “Oh, my God!” he said again.

Elizabeth got up. She was trembling just a little, but she felt no faintness now. She put one hand on the mantelpiece, and so stood, waiting.

There was a very long silence, one of those profound silences which seem to break in upon a room and fill it. They overlie and blot out all the little sounds of every-day life and usage. Outside, people came and went, the traffic in the High Street came and went, but neither to David, nor to Elizabeth, did there come the smallest sound. They were enclosed in a silence that seemed to stretch unbroken, from one Eternity to another. It became an unbearable torment. To his dying day, when any one spoke of hell, David glimpsed a place of eternal silence, where anguish burned for ever with a still unwavering flame.

He moved at last, slowly, like a man who has been in a trance. His head lifted. He got up, resting his weight upon his hands. Then he straightened himself. All his movements were like those of a man who is lifting an intolerably heavy load.

“Why did you marry me?” he asked in a tired voice and then his tone hardened. “Who is the man? Who is he? Will he marry you if I divorce you?”

An unbearable pang of pity went through Elizabeth, and she turned her head sharply. David stopped looking at her.

She to be ashamed-oh, God!- Elizabeth ashamed-he could not look at her. He walked quickly to the window. Then turned back again because Elizabeth was speaking.

“David,” she said, in a low voice, “David, what sort of woman am I?”

A groan burst from David.

“You are a good woman. That 's just the damnable part of it. There are some women, when they do a thing like this, one only says they 've done after their kind-they're gone where they belong. When a good woman does it, it 's Hell-just Hell. And you 're a good woman.”

Elizabeth was looking down. She could not bear his face.

“And would you say I was a truthful woman?” she said. “If I were to tell you the truth, would you believe me, David?”

“Yes,” said David at once. “Yes, I 'd believe you. If you told me anything at all you 'd tell me the truth. Why should n't I believe you?”

“Because the truth is very unbelievable,” said Elizabeth.

David lifted his head and looked at her.

“Oh, you 'll not lie,” he said.

“Thank you,” said Elizabeth. After a moment's pause, she went on.

“Will you sit down, David? I don't think I can speak if you walk up and down like that. It 's not very easy to speak.”

He sat down in a big chair, that stood with its back to the window.

“David,” she said, “when we were in Switzerland, you asked me how I had put you to sleep. You asked me if I had hypnotised you. I said, No. I want to know if you believed me?”

“I don't know what I believed,” said David wearily. The question appeared to him to be entirely irrelevant and unimportant.

“When you hypnotise a person, you are producing an illusion,” said Elizabeth. “The effect of what I did was to destroy one. But whatever I did, when you asked me to stop doing it, I stopped. You do believe that?”

“Yes-I believe that.”

“I stopped at once-definitely. You must please believe that. Presently you will see why I say this.”

All the time she had been standing quietly by the mantelpiece. Now she came across and kneeled down beside David's chair. She laid her hands one above the other upon the broad arm, and she looked, not at David at all, but at her own hands. It was the penitent's attitude, but David Blake, looking at her, found nothing of the penitent's expression. The light shone full upon her face. There was a look upon it that startled him. Her face was white and still. The look that riveted David's attention was a look of remoteness-passionless remoteness-and over all a sort of patience.

Elizabeth looked down at her strong folded hands, and began to speak in a quiet, gentle voice. The sapphire in her ring caught the light.

“David, just now you asked me why I married you. You never asked me that before. I am going to tell you now. I married you because I loved you very much. I thought I could help, and I loved you. That is why I married you. You won't speak, please, till I have done. It is n't easy.”

She drew a long, steady breath and went on.

“I knew you did n't love me, you loved Mary. It was n't good for you. I knew that you would never love me. I was-content-with friendship. You gave me friendship. Then we came home. And you stopped loving Mary. I was very thankful-for you-not for myself.”

She stopped for a moment. David was looking at her. Her words fell on his heart, word after word, like scalding tears. So she had loved him-it only needed that. Why did she tell him now when it was all too late-hideously too late?