Incredible as it may seem, for the first time Llwellyn realised what he had done—realised, that is, in its entirety, the whole horror and consequences of that action of his which was to kill him now.
He had not been able to see the magnitude and extent of his crime before—either at the time when it was proposed to him, except at the first moment of speech, or after its committal.
His brain and temperament had been wrapped round in the hideous fact of sensuality, which deadens and destroys sensation.
And now, with his wife's thin arms round him, her withered cheek pressed to his, her words of glad love, a martyr's swan song in his ears, he saw, knew, and understood.
Through the terror of his thoughts her words began to penetrate.
"I know, Robert—husband, I know. The end is here. But what has happened? Tell me everything, that I may comfort you the more. Tell me, Robert, for the dear Christ's sake!"
At those words the man stiffened. "For the dear Christ's sake!"
Suddenly, in the disorder and tumult of his tortured brain, came, quite foolishly and inconsequently, a quotation from an old French romance—full of satire and the keen cynicism of a period—which he had been reading:
"'Tres volontiers,' repartit le démon.
'Vous aimez les tableaux changeans;
Je veux vous contenter.'"
Yes! the devil who was torturing him now had shown him many moving aspects of life. Les tableaux changeans!