It was but little after daybreak when Mrs Lawford, after
listening at his door a while, turned the key and looked in on
her husband. Blue-grey light from between the venetian blinds
just dusked the room. She stood in a bluish dressing-gown, her
hand on her bosom, looking down on the lean impassive face. For
the briefest instant her heart had leapt with an indescribable
surmise; to fall dull as lead once more. Breathing equably and
quietly, the strange figure lay stretched upon the bed. 'How can
he sleep? How can he sleep?' she whispered with a black and
hopeless indignation. What a night she had had! And he!

She turned noiselessly away. The candle had guttered to
extinction. The big glass reflected her, voluminous and wan, her
dark-ringed eyes, full lips, rich, glossy hair, and rounded chin.
'Yes, yes,' it seemed to murmur mournfully. She turned away, and
drawing stealthily near stooped once more quite low, and examined
the face on the pillow with lynx-like concentration. And though
every nerve revolted at the thought, she was finally convinced,
unwillingly, but assuredly, that her husband was here. Indeed, if
it were not so, how could she for a single moment have accepted
the possibility that he was a stranger? He seemed to haunt, like
a ghostly emanation, this strange, detestable face--as memory
supplies the features concealed beneath a mask. The face was
still and stony, like one dead or imaged in wax, yet beneath it
dreams were passing--silly, ordinary Lawford dreams. She was
almost alarmed at the terribly rancorous hatred she felt for the
face... 'It was just like Arthur to be so taken in!'

Then she too remembered Quain, and remembered also in the slowly