“What’s yours , Mr. Solent?” pursued the incorrigible young man, while Gerda was bending over the lamp.

Wolf had by this time become so certain that something fatal had happened, that in his nervousness it was very hard to restrain himself from a violent outburst.

“Purpose?” he repeated; and the word sounded pure nonsense. “She must have given herself to him,” he thought, “out of blind anger, just to spite me! If it isn’t that, what is it? Something’s happened. She’s either given herself to him or promised to!”

“Purpose?” he repeated aloud, turning the word over in his mind as if it were a stone or a shell. “I suppose, to get at reality through experience?⁠ ⁠… No! How shall I put it?⁠ ⁠… To enjoy reality through sensation? I expect that’s it. Through certain kinds of sensation.”