The death-bed and its burden filled the room. In the narrow space between it and the wall little Laura went to and fro, to and fro, looking for a pair of white socks that were not there and never had been. She must find, she was saying, a pair of white socks, of clean white socks. They had told her that they were necessary.
XXXIX
It was on the thirtieth of July that Laura's father died. Three weeks later Laura was living in the room in Adelphi Terrace which had been Owen Prothero's. Nina had taken her away from the house in Camden Town, where she had sat alone with her grief and remorse and the intolerable memory of her fear. They said that her mind would give way if she were left there.
And now, secretly and in a night, her trouble had passed from her. Lying there in Owen's room, on his bed, held as in shelter by the walls that had held him, there had come to her a strange and intimate sense of his presence. More strangely and more intimately still, it assured her of her father's presence and continuance, of it being as Owen had said. The wind from the river passed over her, lying there. It fell like an aura of immortality.
After that night the return of her bodily health was rapid, a matter of three days; and they said of her that this marvellous recovery was due to the old man's death, to her release from the tension.
Late one afternoon she was sitting by herself at Owen's window that looked out to the sky. Outside the rain streamed in a grey mist to the streets and the river. At the sound of it her heart lifted with a sudden wildness and tremor. She started when Nina opened the door and came to her, haggard and unsmiling.
Nina was telling her twice over to go down-stairs. There was somebody there who had come to see her. When she asked who it was, Nina answered curtly that she, Laura, knew.
Laura went down to Nina's room, the room that looked over the river.
Prothero stood by the window with his back to the light.