Then he took that rigid figure gently by the arm.
"Mabel," he said, "Mabel." She submitted to be drawn towards the sofa, but there was no response to his touch.

He sat down and looked up at her with a kind of despairing apprehension.
"My dear, I am tired out," he said.
Still she looked at him.

There was in her pose that rigidity that actors simulate; yet he knew it for the real thing.

He had seen that silence once or twice before in the presence of a horror--once at any rate, at the sight of a splash of blood on her shoe.
"Well, my darling, sit down, at least," he said.
She obeyed him mechanically--sat, and still stared at him.

In the silence once more that soft roar rose and died from the invisible world of tumult outside the windows.