there to catch it. She besought of him to say what he wanted, but he made
no reply, and continued to drag himself from one piece of furniture to
another, till at last, grasping the back of a chair, he breathed by jerks,
each inspiration being accompanied by a violent spasmodic wrench, violent
enough to break open his chest. She watched, expecting every moment to see
him roll over, a corpse, but knowing from past experiences that he would
recover somehow. His recoveries always seemed to her like miracles, and she
watched the long pallid face crushed under a shock of dark matted hair, a
dirty nightshirt, a pair of thin legs; but for the moment the grandeur of
human suffering covered him, lifting him beyond the pale of loving or
loathing, investing and clothing him in the pity of tragic things. The
room, too, seemed transfigured. The bare wide floor, the gaunt bed, the
poor walls plastered with religious prints cut from journals, even the
ordinary furniture of everyday use--the little washhandstand with the
common delf ewer, the chest of drawers that might have been bought for
thirty shillings--lost their coarseness; their triviality disappeared,
until nothing was seen or felt but this one suffering man.

The minutes slipped like the iron teeth of a saw over Kate's sensibilities.
A hundred times she had run over in her mind the list of remedies she had
seen him use. They were few in number, and none of any real service except
the cigarettes which she had not. She asked him to allow her to try iodine,
but he could not or would not make her any answer. It was cruel to see him
struggling, but he resisted assistance, and watching like one in a dream,
frightened at her own powerlessness to save or avert, Kate remained
crouching by the fireplace without strength to think or act, until she was
suddenly awakened by seeing him relax his hold and slip heavily on the
floor; and it was only by putting forth her whole strength she could get
him into a sitting position; when she attempted to place him in a chair he
slipped through her arms. There was, therefore, nothing to do but to shriek