idea of what the crisis would be, or how it would come. She only saw that she had struck upon a new path that led somewhere. She must follow it.
Some little sound roused her; she opened her eyes and looked up.
He had shifted his position, and for a moment her heart leapt with hope.
For he sat now leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, and his head in his hands, and in the shaded lamplight it seemed that he was shaking.
She too moved, and the rustle of her dress seemed to reach him. He glanced up, and before he dropped his head again she caught a clear sight of his face. He was laughing, silently and overpoweringly, without a sound. …
For a moment the nausea seized her so fiercely that she gasped, catching at her throat; and she stared at that bowed head and shaking shoulders with a horror that she had not felt before.
The laughter was worse than all: and it was a little while before she perceived its unreality.
- It was like a laughing machine.
- And the silence of it gave it a peculiar touch.
She wrestled with herself, driving down the despair that was on her. Courage and love.
Again she leaned back without speaking, closing her eyes to shut out the terror, and began desperately and resolutely to bend her will again to the task.
Again a little sound disturbed her.