There, in the dream-like illumination, he saw Lucy lying within his deep arm-chair.

Her face was turned away from him and hidden against the cushion; her black hair streamed over the white folds of her wrapper: one arm was beneath her, the other hung helplessly over her knee.
He went up to her and called her name in an agony.
She moved slightly, made an effort to rouse herself and raised her hand.
But the hand fell again, and the word half-formed upon her lips died away.
Nothing could be more piteous, more disarmed.

Yet even her disarray and helplessness were lovely; she was noble in her defeat; her very abandonment breathed youth and purity; the man's wildly surging thoughts sank abashed.
But words escaped him--words giving irrevocable shape to feeling.

For he saw that she could not hear.
'Lucy!--Lucy--dear, beautiful Lucy!' He hung over her in an ardent silence, his eyes breathing a respect that was the very soul of passion, his hand not daring to touch even a fold of her dress.

Meanwhile the door leading to the little passage-room opened noiselessly.