As for help, there was none: the nurse was gone on some errand; the doctor was arranging for the funeral of Oxbye under the name of Lord Harry Norland; the cottage was empty.
Such a fainting fit does not last for ever. Iris came round, and sat up, looking wildly around.
"What is it?" she cried. "What does it mean?"
"It means, my love, that you have returned to your husband." He laid an arm round her, and kissed her again and again.
"You are my Harry!—living!—my own Harry?"
"Your own Harry, my darling. What else should I be?"
"Tell me then, what does it mean—that picture—that horrid photograph?"
"That means nothing—nothing—a freak—a joke of the doctor's. What could it mean?" He took it up. "Why, my dear, I am living—living and well. What should this mean but a joke?"
He laid it on the table again, face downwards. But her eyes showed that she was not satisfied. Men do not make jokes on death; it is a sorry jest indeed to dress up a man in grave-clothes, and make a photograph of him as of one dead.
"But you—you, my Iris; you are here—tell me how and why—and when, and everything? Never mind that stupid picture: tell me."