knocks on his door persisted, and then he remembered. Instantly he was on his feet, numb with dread.
"Agnes will come to church and denounce me before all the people," was his one thought.
He did not know why, but somehow whilst he slept the certainty that she would carry out her threat had taken firm root in his consciousness.
He dropped down in his chair with trembling knees and a sense of complete helplessness. His mind was clouded and confused: he wondered vaguely if it would not be possible even now to avert the scandal—he might feign illness and not say Mass at all, and thus gain time in which he might endeavour to pacify Agnes. But the very idea of beginning the whole thing over again, of suffering a second time all his misery of the previous day, only increased his mental torment.
He got up, and his head seemed to hit the sky through the glass of his window, and he stamped his feet on the floor to dispel the numbness that was paralysing his very blood.
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