‘Why don’t you help him?’ cried Ursula sharply.

He came again, and Birkin leaned to help him in to the boat. Gudrun again watched Gerald climb out of the water, but this time slowly, heavily, with the blind clambering motions of an amphibious beast, clumsy. Again the moon shone with faint luminosity on his white wet figure, on the stooping back and the rounded loins. But it looked defeated now, his body, it clambered and fell with slow clumsiness. He was breathing hoarsely too, like an animal that is suffering. He sat slack and motionless in the boat, his head blunt and blind like a seal’s, his whole appearance inhuman, unknowing. Gudrun shuddered as she mechanically followed his boat. Birkin rowed without speaking to the landing–stage.

‘Where are you going?’ Gerald asked suddenly, as if just waking up.

‘Home,’ said Birkin.

‘Oh no!’ said Gerald imperiously. ‘We can’t go home while they’re in the water. Turn back again, I’m going to find them.’ The women were frightened, his voice was so imperative and dangerous, almost mad, not to be opposed.

‘No!’ said Birkin. ‘You can’t.’ There was a strange fluid compulsion in his voice. Gerald was silent in a battle of wills. It was as if he would kill the other man. man But Birkin rowed evenly and unswerving, with an inhuman inevitability.

‘Why should you interfere?’ said Gerald, in hate.

Birkin did not answer. He rowed towards the land. And Gerald sat mute, like a dumb beast, panting, his teeth chattering, his arms inert, his head like a seal’s head.

They came to the landing–stage. Wet and naked–looking, Gerald climbed up the few steps. There stood his father, in the night.

‘Father!’ he said.

‘Yes my boy? Go home and get those things off.’

‘We shan’t save them, father,’ said Gerald.

‘There’s hope yet, my boy.’

‘I’m afraid not. There’s no knowing where they are. You can’t find them. And there’s a current, as cold as hell.’

‘We’ll let the water out,’ said the father. ‘Go home you and look to yourself. See that he’s looked after, Rupert,’ he added in a neutral voice.

‘Well father, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m afraid it’s my fault. But it can’t be helped; I’ve done what I could for the moment. I could go on diving, of course—not much, though—and not much use—’

He moved away barefoot, on the planks of the platform. Then he trod on something sharp.

‘Of course, you’ve got no shoes on,’ said Birkin.

‘His shoes are here!’ cried Gudrun from below. She was making fast her boat.

Gerald waited for them to be brought to him. Gudrun came with them. He pulled them on his feet.

‘If you once die,’ he said, ‘then when it’s over, it’s finished. Why come to life again? There’s room under that water there for thousands.’

“Don’t imagine that I intended to kill him in cold blood. It would only have been rigid justice if I had done so, but I could not bring myself to do it. I had long determined that he should have a show for his life if he chose to take advantage of it. Among the many billets which I have filled in America during my wandering life, I was once janitor and sweeper-out of the laboratory at York College. One day the professor was lecturing on poisons, and he showed his students some alkaloid, as he called it, which he had extracted from some South American arrow poison, and which was so powerful that the least grain meant instant death. I spotted the bottle in which this preparation was kept, and when they were all gone, I helped myself to a little of it. I was a fairly good dispenser, so I worked this alkaloid into small, soluble pills, and each pill I put in a box with a similar pill made without the poison. I determined at the time that when I had my chance my gentlemen should each have a draw out of one of these boxes, while I ate the pill that remained. It would be quite as deadly and a good deal less noisy than firing across a handkerchief. From that day I had always my pill boxes about with me. and the time had now come when I was to use them.

“It was nearer one than twelve, and a wild, bleak night, blowing hard and raining in torrents. Dismal as it was outside. I was glad within — so glad that I could have shouted out from pure exultation. If any of you gentlemen have ever pined for a thing, and longed for it during twenty long years, and then suddenly found it within your reach, you would understand my feelings. I lit a cigar, and puffed at it to steady my nerves, but my hands were trembling and my temples throbbing with excitement. As I drove, I could see old John Ferrier and sweet Lucy looking at me out of the darkness and smiling at me, just as plain as I see you all in this room. All the way they were ahead of me, one on each side of the horse until I pulled up at the house in the Brixton Road.

“There was not a soul to be seen, nor a sound to be heard, except the dripping of the rain. When I looked in at the window, I found Drebber all huddled together in a drunken sleep. I shook him by the arm, ‘It’s time to get out.’ I said.

“‘All right, cabby.’ said he.

“I suppose he thought we had come to the hotel that he had mentioned, for he got out without another word, and followed me down the garden. I had to walk beside him to keep him steady, for he was still a little top-heavy. When we came to the door, I opened it and led him into the front room. I give you my word that all the way, the father and the daughter were walking in front of us.

“‘It’s infernally dark,’ said he, stamping about.

“‘We’ll soon have a light,’ I said, striking a match and putting it to a wax candle which I had brought with me. ‘Now, Enoch Drebber,’ I continued, turning to him, and holding the light to my own face, ‘who am l?’