"How long can I keep it from them?" he asked bitterly. "What an atmosphere for children—my children!—to grow up in!"
"If you would do as I wish, and send her where she belongs—"
"I shall not. She is my wife. Moreover, concealment would then be impossible."
They had reached the third floor. He inserted a key in a door, hesitated a moment, then said abruptly: "I saw in a paper that she had returned. Can it be possible?"
"I saw her on the Avenue a few moments ago."
Was it the doctor's imagination, or did the goaded man at his side flash him a glance of appeal?
They entered a room whose doors and windows were muffled. The furniture was solid, too solid to be moved except by muscular arms. There were no mirrors nor breakable articles of any sort.
On the bed lay a woman with ragged hair and sunken yellow face, but even in her ruin indefinably elegant. Her parted lips were black and blistered within; her shapely skinny hands clutched the quilt with the tenacious suggestion of the eagle—that long-lived defiant bird. At the bedside sat a vigorous woman, the pallor of fatigue on her face.
The creature on the bed opened her eyes. They had once been what are vaguely known as fine eyes; now they looked like blots of ink on parchment.
"Give me a drink," she said feverishly. "Water! water! water!" She panted, and her tongue protruded slightly. Her husband turned away, his shoulders twitching. The nurse held a silver goblet to the woman's lips. She drank greedily, then scowled up at the doctor.