There was another silence, long and ominous. Somehow, Leith was leaning upon the mantel-shelf again, though neither Stolliker nor Carlita could have told how he got there.
"You don't know what you are asking," he said at last, in a dull, tense voice. "The place is so wild, so unreal. Wait for awhile. Wait until you have got over the first shock—the first horror of it all. Then, if you wish it, I will help you."
And with that she was apparently content.
"I may come again?" he asked shortly afterward, as he was leaving; and, mindful of Stolliker's words and her own oath, she answered:
"Yes, you may come again."
He pressed her hand and left her silently, passing out into the hall and out of the house without seeing Jessica's mocking face at the head of the stairs, though he might not have understood the scornful, triumphant smile upon it, even if he had.
He wearily closed the hall door upon himself, and as he slowly descended the stoop, he lifted his hat and pushed the damp hair back from his forehead.
"God!" he muttered, half aloud, "if I had suspected half how hard it would be, I should never have undertaken it even for her. Ay, verily, 'whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.'"
Stolliker watched him down the street, then joined Carlita upon the hearth-rug.