"Do you think I would have come here if it were a light matter? No, I tell you, it is a matter of life and death to you, at least as an artist."
"Have you done a stroke of work since I last saw you?"
"Yes, let me see, surely, magazine articles and a poem."
"That is not what I want to know. Have you accomplished anything big? Have you grown since this summer? How about your novel?"
"I--I have almost finished it in my mind, but I have found no chance to begin with the actual writing. I was sick of late, very sick."
No doubt of it! His face was pinched and pale, and the lines about the mouth were curiously contorted, like those of a man suffering from a painful internal disease.
"Tell me," she ventured, "do you ever miss anything?"
"Thieves! Against thieves one can protect oneself."
He stared at her wildly, half-frightened, in anticipation of some dreadful revelation. His dream! His dream! That hand! Could it be more than a dream? God! His lips quivered.
Ethel observed his agitation and continued more quietly, but with the same insistence: "Have you ever had ideas, plans that you began without having strength to complete them? Have you had glimpses of vocal visions that seemed to vanish no sooner than seen? Did it ever seem to you as if some mysterious and superior will brutally interfered with the workings of your brain?"
Did it seem so to him! He himself could not have stated more plainly the experience of the last few months. Each word fell from her lips like the blow of a hammer. Shivering, he put his arm around her, seeking solace, not love. This time she did not repulse him and, trustingly, as a child confides to his mother, he depicted to her the suffering that harrowed his life and made it a hell.
As she listened, indignation clouded her forehead, while rising tears of anger and of love weighed down her lashes. She could bear the pitiful sight no longer.
"Child," she cried, "do you know who your tormentor is?"
And like a flash the truth passed from her to him. A sudden intimation told him what her words had still concealed.
"Don't! For Christ's sake, do not pronounce his name!" he sobbed. "Do not breathe it. I could not endure it. I should go mad."
Very quietly, with difficulty restraining her own emotion so as not to excite him further, Ethel had related to Ernest the story of her remarkable interview with Reginald Clarke. In the long silence that ensued, the wings of his soul brushed against hers for the first time, and Love by a thousand tender chains of common suffering welded their beings into one.