"I'm Peter Westcott," he answered.
She moved again, coming a little nearer.
"I want to sit down," she said. "I'm not very well." She gave a little sigh, her arms moved in a gesture of protest and she sank upon the floor. He went to her, lifted her up (he felt at once how small she was and slight), carried her into his room and laid her on his old green-backed sofa.
Then, bending over her, he saw that she was his wife, Clare.
Instantly he was flooded, body and soul, with pity. He had, he could have, no other sense but that. It had been, perhaps, all his life even during those childish years of defiance of his father the strongest emotion in him—it was called forth now as it had never been before.
He had hurried into his bedroom, fetched water, bathed her forehead, her hands, taken off the shabby hat, unfastened the faded black dress at the throat, still she lay there, her eyes closed in the painted and powdered face, the body crumpled up on the sofa as though it were broken in every limb.
Broken! Indeed she was! It was nearly twenty years since he had last seen her, since that moment when she had turned back at the door, looking at him with that strange appeal in her eyes, the appeal that had failed. He heard again, as though it had been only yesterday, her voice in their last conversation—"I've got a headache. I'm going upstairs to lie down. . . ." And that had been the end.
She smelt of some horrible scent, the powder on her face blew off in little dry flakes, her hair was still that same wonderful colour, yellow gold; she must be forty now—her body was as slight and childish as it had been twenty years ago. He rubbed her hands: they were not clean and the nails were broken.
She moved restlessly without opening her eyes, as though in her sleep, she pushed against him, then freed her hands from his, muttering. He caught some words: "No, Alex—no. Don't hurt me. I want to be happy! Oh, I want to be happy! Oh, don't hurt me! Don't!"
All this in a little whimper as though she had no strength left with which to cry out. Then her eyes opened: she stared about her, first at the ceiling, then at the table and chairs, then at Peter.