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'That is what is perfectly damnable...' He remained silent for nearly a minute, Levin slapping his leggings with his riding-crop in a nervously passionate rhythm. Tietjens stiffened himself and began:

'General O'Hara came to my wife's room and burst in the door. I was there. I took him to be drunk. But from what he exclaimed I have since imagined that he was not so much drunk as misled. There was another man lying in the corridor where I had thrown him. General O'Hara exclaimed that this was Major Perowne. I had not realized that this was Major Perowne. I do not know Major Perowne very well and he was not in uniform. I had imagined him to be a French waiter coming to call me to the telephone. I had seen only his face round the door: he was looking round the door. My wife was in a state...bordering on nudity. I had put my hand under his chin and thrown him through the doorway. I am physically very strong and I exercised all my strength. I am aware of that. I was excited, but not more excited than the circumstances seemed to call for...'

Levin exclaimed:

'But...At three in the morning! The telephone!'

'I was ringing up my headquarters and yours. All through the night. The O.I.C. draft, Lieutenant Cowley, was also ringing me up. I was anxious to know what was to be done about the Canadian railway men. I had three times been called to the telephone since I had been in Mrs Tietjens' room, and once an orderly had come down from the camp. I was also conducting a very difficult conversation with my wife as to the disposal of my family's estates, which are large, so that the details were complicated. I occupied the room next door to Mrs Tietjens and till that moment, the communicating door between the rooms being open, I had heard when a waiter or an orderly had knocked at my own door in the corridor. The night porter of the hotel was a dark, untidy, surly sort of fellow...Not unlike Perowne.'

Levin said:

'Is it necessary to go into all this? We...'

Tietjens said:

'If I am to make a statement it seems necessary. I would prefer you to question me...'

Levin said:

'Please go on...We accept the statement that Major Perowne was not in uniform. He states that he was in his pyjamas and dressing-gown. Looking for the bathroom.'

Tietjens said: 'Ah!' and stood reflecting. He said:

'May I hear the...purport of Major Perowne's statement?'

'He states,' Levin said, 'what I have just said. He was looking for the bathroom. He had not slept in the hotel before. He opened a door and looked round it, and was immediately thrown with great violence down into the passage with his head against the wall. He says that this dazed him so that, not really appreciating what had happened, he shouted various accusations against the person who had assaulted him...General O'Hara then came out of his room...'

Tietjens said:

'What accusations did Major Perowne shout?'

'He doesn't...' Levin hesitated, 'eh!...elaborate them in his statement.'

Tietjens said:

'It is, I imagine, material that I should know what they are...'

Levin said:

'I don't know that...If you'll forgive me...Major Perowne came to see me, reaching me half an hour after General O'Hara. He was very...extremely nervous and concerned. I am bound to say...for Mrs. Tietjens. And also very concerned to spare yourself!...It appears that he had shouted out just anything...As it might be "Thieves!" or "Fire!"...But when General O'Hara came out he told him, being out of himself, that he had been invited to your wife's room, and that...Oh, excuse me...I'm under great obligations to you...the very greatest...that you had attempted to blackmail him!'

Tietjens said:

'Well!...'

'You understand,' Levin said, and he was pleading, 'that that is what he said to General O'Hara in the corridor. He even confessed it was madness...He did not maintain the accusation to me...'

Tietjens said:

'Not that Mrs Tietjens had given him leave?...'

Levin said with tears in his eyes:

'I'll not go on with this...I will rather resign my commission than go on tormenting you...'

'You can't resign your commission,'