Late at night Rosamund was allowed to enter the chill unlighted chamber, where the unhappy lady had been lying for hours in the gloom of a London Winter’s daylight and gaslight.
“Madame de Rouaillout is indisposed with headache,” was her report to Beauchamp.
The conventional phraseology appeased him, though he saw his grief behind it.
Presently he asked if Renée had taken food.
“No: you know what a headache is,” Rosamund replied.
It is true that we do not care to eat when we are in pain.
He asked if she looked ill.
“She will not have lights in the room,” said Rosamund.
Piecemeal he gained the picture of Renée in an image of the death within which welcomed a death without.
Rosamund was impatient with him for speaking of medical aid. These men! She remarked very honestly: