As they returned hand in hand to their house-door, a queer, abashed sense came over him that all the events of this turbulent day had been a sort of feverish delirium. What was his mind that it should go through such agitation and remain unaltered⁠—remain the same “I am I” of Wolf Solent?

But once again his self-knowledge received a shock. For no sooner were they inside their small domicile, no sooner had he glanced at the linoleum on the staircase, the wooden clock in the parlour, the familiar kitchen-table, than all these little objects hit his consciousness with a delicious thrilling sense of happy security, as if he had come back to them from some great voyage over desolate and forlorn seas, as if he had come back to them with his clothes drenched with saltwater and his hands wounded by tarred ropes! His mind may have remained unaltered by all this, but it had at any rate been washed very clean!