Lawrence started. The echo struck strangely on his ear. "I understand."
"You always understand. So I tried again; I said: would he at least let me go to my room and change my clothes and get some money. But he said it was your turn to buy my clothes now. When I'd convinced myself that he was unapproachable, I thought of trying to get in by a side door or through the kitchen. It would have been ignominious, but anything was better than standing on the steps; Bernard was talking at the top of his voice, and the maids were at the bedroom windows overhead. I didn't look up but I saw the curtains flutter."
"Servants don't matter much. But you did quite right. What happened?"
"He held me by the arm as I turned to go, and told me that all the doors and windows were locked and that he had given orders not to admit me: not to admit either of us."
"Either you or—?"
"Yourself. If we liked to stay out all night together we could stay out for ever."
"And then?"
"Don't ask me." She shuddered and drooped, and the colour came up into her face, a rose-pink patch of fever. "I can't remember any more."
"He must have gone raving mad."
"He is not mad, Lawrence. But he has indulged his imagination too long and now it has the mastery of him," said Laura slowly. "It's fatal to do that. 'Withstand the beginning: after-remedies come too late.' Ever since you came he's been nursing an imaginary jealousy of you: though he knew it was imaginary, he indulged it as though it were genuine: and now it has turned on him and got him by the throat. Oh, he is so unhappy? But what can I do?"