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.