She calculated that she could fend off the moment of doom for a month, maybe two, and then the entire artificial structure of her domestic bliss would collapse. There was little satisfaction in the certain knowledge that the blackmailer would also be brought down in her own fall. What were six months in prison for a woman who undoubtedly led a dissolute life and probably had a criminal record already, by comparison with the life she herself would lose? And she felt, in horror, that it was the only possible life for her. To begin a new one, dishonoured and with a stain on her reputation, seemed unimaginable to Irene, a woman who had received everything in her existence up to now as a gift, who had never been responsible for constructing any part of her own destiny. And then her children were here, her husband, her home, all the things that she realised only now, when she was about to lose them, were so much a part of her life, indeed were the essence of it. Everything that she had merely taken for granted in the past, touching it only with the hem of her garment, she now suddenly felt was dreadfully necessary to her, and the idea that a strange vagrant of a woman lurking somewhere in the streets might have the power to destroy its warm, coherent entity with a single word seemed more than she could grasp, and indeed as improbable as a dream.

She could not avert the disaster—she felt that now with terrible certainty; she had no way of escape. But what … what exactly would happen? She fretted over that question from morning to night. One day a letter to her husband would arrive. She could see him now, coming into the room, pale, with a sombre expression on his face, taking hold of her arm, asking questions … but then … what would happen then? What would he do? Here the pictures in her mind’s eye were suddenly extinguished in the darkness of a confused and cruel fear. She had no idea what would happen then, and her speculations plunged to dizzy, endless depths. In this brooding frame of mind, however, she saw how little she really knew her husband, how unable she was to work out in advance what his decision would be. She had married him at the urging of her parents, although with no reluctance, indeed with a pleasant sense of liking for him which was not disappointed later. She had spent eight years of comfortable, quiet contentment at his side, she had borne his children, she shared his home and had spent countless hours physically close to him, but only now that she wondered about his possible behaviour did she realise what a stranger he still was to her. Looking back feverishly at her recollections of the last few years, and feeling as if she were turning ghostly floodlights on them, she discovered that she had never wondered what his nature was really like, and now, after all these years, did not even know whether he should be described as harsh or forbearing, stern or affectionate. Stricken disastrously late by a guilty conscience which itself was engendered by her mortal fear, she had to admit to herself that she had known him only superficially, on the social level, never in that deeper part of his nature where his decision would surely be made at this tragic moment. Instinctively she began keeping an eye open for small traits of character in him, for indications, trying to remember what he had said in conversation about such cases, and she was unpleasantly surprised to realise that he had hardly ever expressed any views of his own to her. Then again, she herself had never turned to him with questions that went very deep. Now, at last, she put her mind to his life as a whole, looking for individual features that might tell her more about his character. Her fear began hammering reluctantly away at every little memory, trying to find a way into the secret chambers of his heart.

She turned her watchful attention to the slightest thing he said, and waited with feverish impatience for the times when he came home. She hardly noticed his greeting, but in his gestures—the way he kissed her hand or stroked her hair—there seemed to be an affection that might indicate a deep love of her, although it avoided any stormy demonstrations. He always spoke to her in measured tones, never impatiently or in any agitation, and his general attitude to her was one of kindly composure, yet as she uneasily began to suspect it was not very different from his manner to the servants, and certainly was less warm than his feeling for the children, which always took lively form—sometimes he joked with them cheerfully, sometimes he was passionately affectionate. Today, as usual, he civilly asked about any domestic matters, as if to give her a chance of expressing her interests to him while he said nothing about his own, and for the first time she discovered herself noticing the care with which he treated her, his reserved approach to their daily conversations—which, as she was suddenly horrified to realise, were flat and banal. He gave nothing of himself away, and her curiosity, longing for something to calm her mind, remained unsatisfied.

As he said nothing to give her a clue, she searched his face. He was sitting in his armchair now, reading a book, his features clearly illuminated by the electric light. She scanned his face as if it were a stranger’s, trying to deduce from those well-known yet suddenly unfamiliar features the character that eight years of living together had kept hidden from her indifference. His brow was smooth and well shaped, as if formed by strong intellectual effort; his mouth, however, looked stern and unyielding. Everything about his very masculine features was firm, full of energy and power. Surprised to find beauty in it, she considered that restrained gravity with a certain admiration, seeing the evident austerity of his nature which so far, in her simple-minded way, she had merely thought was not very entertaining, wishing it could have been exchanged for a sociable loquacity. His eyes, however, where the real secret must after all lie, were bent on his book, so that she was unable to consider what they told her. She could only look inquiringly at his profile, as if its curving line meant a single word portending mercy or damnation—a profile now unfamiliar, so harsh that it alarmed her, yet making her aware for the first time, in its determined expression, of its remarkable beauty.