It was a painful, almost a hideous sleep. His cheeks swelled and sank; his lips parted, he was breathing heavily, and sometimes gaping like a carp out of water.
I could not detach my eyes from his face, which, without eyes to relieve it, seemed to be almost repulsive now. It would be difficult to describe my sensations. I felt dreadfully humiliated. Even my personal pride was wounded. I remembered what Father Dan had said about husband and wife being one flesh, and told myself that this was what I belonged to, what belonged to me—this! Then I tried to reproach and reprove myself, but in order to do so I had to turn my eyes away.
Our road to Blackwater lay over the ridge of a hill much exposed to the wind from the south-west. When we reached this point the clouds seemed to roll up from the sea like tempestuous battalions. Torrential rain fell on the car and came dripping in from the juncture of the landaulette roof. Some of it fell on the sleeper and he awoke with a start.
"Damn—"
He stopped, as if, caught in guilt, and began to apologise again.
"Was I asleep? I really think I must have been. Stupid, isn't it? Excuse me."
He blinked his eyes as if to empty them of sleep, looked me over for a moment or two in silence, and then said with a smile which made me shudder:
"So you and I are man and wife, my dear!"
I made no answer, and, still looking fixedly at me, he said:
"Well, worse things might have happened after all—what do you think?"