"You aren't hurt anywhere, are you?" asked Lawrence, feeling cold to his fingertips.
"No, no," she roused herself, dimly sensible of his anxiety, "it's only that I feel faint, but it's passing off. No, I don't want any water! I'd far rather you stayed with me. It's such a comfort to have you here." Lawrence was speechless. Her hands went to her hair. "Oh dear, I wish I weren't so untidy! Never mind, I shall be all right directly: it does me more good than anything else just to tell you about it."
"Well, tell me then."
"The door was locked," she continued languidly but a thought more clearly, "and the chain was up and Bernard's couch was drawn across inside. He must have got Barry to wheel it over. When I begged him to let me in he unlocked the door but left it on the chain so that it would only open a few inches. I tried to push my way in, but he held me back."
"Laura, did he strike you?"
"No, no," said Laura with greater energy than she had yet shown. Lawrence drew a breath of relief. He had felt a horrible fear that her faintness might be the result of a blow or a fall. "Oh, how could you think that? All he did was to put his hand out flat against my chest and push me back."
"But your dress is torn" said Lawrence, sickening over the question yet feeling that he must know all.
"His ring caught in it. These crepe de chine dresses tear if you look at them."
"Well, did you give it up after that?"
"No, oh no: I never can be angry with Berns because it—it isn't Berns really," she glanced up at Lawrence with her pleading eyes. "It's a possession of the devil. He suffers so frightfully, Lawrence: he never ceases to rebel, and no one can soothe him but me. So that I hadn't the heart to leave him. You'll think it poor-spirited of me, but I—I can't help loving the real Bernard, a Bernard you've never seen. So I waited because—I never can make Yvonne understand—I am so sorry for him: he hurts himself more than me—"