Then, very suddenly he turned and left her.
And Olga, instantly relaxing from a tension too terrible to be born, covered her face with her hands and shuddered over and over again in sick disgust.
It was many minutes before she recovered, minutes during which her mind seemed to be almost too stunned for thought.

Very gradually at length she began to remember the words she had last uttered, the weapon she had used; and numbly she wondered at herself.
No, she had scarcely acted on her own initiative.

Her action had been prompted by some force of which till that moment she had had no knowledge, a force great enough to lift her above her own natural impulses, great enough to help her in her sore strait, and to make all other things seem of small importance.
What would Max have said to that emphatic declaration of hers?
But surely it was Max, and none other, who had inspired it.
Surely--surely--ah, what was this that was happening to her?
What magic was at work?
She suddenly lifted her face to the dazzling summer sky.

A brief giddiness possessed her--and passed.

She was as one over whom a mighty wave had dashed.