I heard no more. The old colonel's voice, which had been beating on my brain like a hammer, seemed to die away in the distance.
"How hard you are breathing. What is amiss?" said our landlady.
I made no reply. Rising to my feet I became giddy and held on to the table cloth to prevent myself from falling.
The landlady jumped up to protect her crockery and at the same moment the old actress led me from the room. I excused myself on the ground of faintness, and the heat of the house after my quick walk home from the theatre.
Back in my bedroom my limbs gave way and I sank to the floor with my head on the chair. There was no uncertainty for me now. It was all over. The great love which had engrossed my life had gone.
In the overwhelming shock of that moment I could not think of the world's loss. I could not even think of Martin's. I could only think of my own, and once more I felt as if something of myself had been torn out of my breast.
"Why? Why?" I was crying in the depths of my heart—why, when I was so utterly alone, so helpless and so friendless, had the light by which I lived been quenched.
After a while the gong sounded for dinner. I got up and lay on the bed. The young waiter brought up some dishes on a tray. I sent them down again. Then time passed and again I heard voices on the floor below.
"Rough on that young peeress if Conrad has gone down, eh?"
"What peeress?"