His wife turned her eyes away and began searching for her handkerchief, he stooped and gave it to her.
The sweat still clung to his ghastly forehead and hung on his hair.
“He said you were not hurt,” she said, “you look as if you were.”
“It’s been rather a disturbing day,” he said, with sudden bitterness. “Never mind me, I’ll be as jolly as a sandboy after a bath.”
She turned herself uneasily on the pillow and shut her eyes. It was horrible to have him there above her.
“Poor little child, poor little unfinished thing!” he thought pitifully. “Shall I send your maid, dear?”
“Yes, please, and won’t—oh, won’t you rest?”
“Yes, I’m off,” he said, in his old cheery voice, and he went outside the door and watched there till morning.
She was very white the next morning, and kept falling off into drowsy little sleeps, but she declared she was all right and meant to get up; the necessity of staying in bed was a new one and she loathed it.
She felt more in her husband’s power, lying there ill; she grew suspicious too, for the first time in her life, and set herself to search for meanings in looks.