imagination.

If what she saw were the result of a sick brain, it was a
convincing, consistent picture which fascinated her attention.

The woman had taken up a not over-clean towel, to dip a corner of it
in a jug upon the washstand before applying it to one side of her
face. Mavis suffered her eyes to leave the woman in order to wander
round the room. She was lying on a sofa at the foot of an iron bed.
That part of the wall nearest to her was filled by the fireplace, in
which a cheerful fire was burning; it looked as if it had recently
been made up. Upon the mantelshelf were faded photographs of common,
self-conscious people, the tops of which all but touched a framed
print of the late Mr Gladstone. In the complementary recess to the
one in which the washstand stood, was a table littered with odds and
ends of food, some of which were still wrapped in the paper in which
they had come from the shop. A smoking oil lamp, of which the glass
shade had disappeared, and which was now shaded with the lid of a
cardboard shoe box, cast elongated shadows of the occupier of the
room on walls and ceiling as she moved. The atmosphere of the room
was heavy with the mingled smell of paraffin oil and fugginess.

"Where--where am I?" asked Mavis.

"You've come round, then?" said the woman, who had just cleansed one
side of her face of artificial complexion.

"How did I get here?"

"I found you outside as I came 'ome. I couldn't very well leave you