of depression would make him vulnerable. He was lying half dressed on a
couch downstairs.

"A table covered with a dark oilcloth took up all the middle of the
little room. There was a wicker cradle on the floor, a kettle spouting
steam on the hob, and some child's linen lay drying on the fender. The
room was warm, but the door opens right into the garden, as you noticed
perhaps.

"He was very feverish, and kept on muttering to himself. She sat on a
chair and looked at him fixedly across the table with her brown, blurred
eyes. 'Why don't you have him upstairs?' I asked. With a start and a
confused stammer she said, 'Oh! ah! I couldn't sit with him upstairs,
Sir.'

"I gave her certain directions; and going outside, I said again that
he ought to be in bed upstairs. She wrung her hands. 'I couldn't. I
couldn't. He keeps on saying something--I don't know what.' With the
memory of all the talk against the man that had been dinned into her
ears, I looked at her narrowly. I looked into her shortsighted eyes,
at her dumb eyes that once in her life had seen an enticing shape, but
seemed, staring at me, to see nothing at all now. But I saw she was
uneasy.

"'What's the matter with him?' she asked in a sort of vacant
trepidation. 'He doesn't look very ill. I never did see anybody look
like this before. . . .'

"'Do you think,' I asked indignantly, 'he is shamming?'