Page:The Prussian officer, and other stories, Lawrence, 1914.djvu/267

 When she began to move about again, he raised his head once more from his dead, motionless position.

“Where are the things?” he said.

“They are upstairs,” she quavered. She knew the passion had gone down in him.

“Bring them down,” he said.

“I won’t,” she wept, with rage. “You’re not going to bully me and hit me like that on the mouth.”

And she sobbed again. He looked at her in contempt and compassion and in rising anger.

“Where are they?” he said.

“They’re in the little drawer under the looking-glass,” she sobbed.

He went slowly upstairs, struck a match, and found the trinkets. He brought them downstairs in his hand.

“These?” he said, looking at them as they lay in his palm.

She looked at them without answering. She was not interested in them any more.

He looked at the little jewels. They were pretty.

“It’s none of their fault,” he said to himself.

And he searched round slowly, persistently, for a box. He tied the things up and addressed them to Sam Adams. Then he went out in his slippers to post the little package.

When he came back she was still sitting crying.

“You’d better go to bed,” he said.

She paid no attention. He sat by the fire. She still cried.

“I’m sleeping down here,” he said. “Go you to bed.”