"Has he really gone?" Louis asked. Rachel did not care for her husband's tone, which was too frivolous for her. She was shocked to find that Louis had not been profoundly impressed by the events of the night.
"He's left it in the other room." She would not disclose to Louis that Julian had restored the notes to the top of the cupboard, because she was afraid that he might treat the symbolic act with levity.
She did so. Louis counted the notes and casually put them in his breast pocket.
"Oddest chap I ever came across!" he observed, smiling.
"But aren't you sorry for him?" Rachel demanded.
"Yes," said Louis airily. "I shall insist on his taking half, naturally."
"I'm going to bed," said Rachel. "You'll see all the lights out."
She offered her face and kissed him tepidly.
"What's come over the kid?" Louis asked himself, somewhat disconcerted, when she had gone.
He remained smoking, purposeless, in the parlour until all sounds had ceased overhead in the bedroom. Then he extinguished the gas in the parlour, in the back room, in the kitchen, and finally in the lobby, and went upstairs by the light of the street lamp. In the bedroom Rachel lay in bed, her eyes closed. She did not stir at his entrance. He locked the bank-notes in a drawer of the dressing-table, undressed with his usual elaborate care, approached Rachel's bed and gazed at her unresponsive form, turned down the gas to a pinpoint, and got into bed himself. Not the slightest sound could be heard anywhere, either in or out of the house, save the faint breathing of Rachel. And after a few moments Louis no longer heard even that. In the darkness the mystery of the human being next him began somehow to be disquieting. He was capable of imagining that he lay in the room with an utter stranger. Then he fell asleep.
Rachel, according to her own impression the next morning, had no sleep during that night. The striking of the hall clock could not be heard in the bedroom with the door closed, but it could be felt as a faint, distinct concussion; and she had thus noted every hour, except four o'clock, when daylight had come and the street lamp had been put out. She had deliberately feigned sleep as Louis entered the room, and had maintained the soft, regular breathing of a sleeper until long after he was in bed. She did not wish to talk; she could not have talked with any safety.