Then those tired eyes, which met his again from a long way
off, disturbed him until he did not know where he was. Only the sunken
cheeks, and the mouth that seemed to protrude now were foreign to him,
and filled him with horror. It seemed he lost his identity. He was the
young husband of the woman with the clear brows; he was the married man
fighting with her whose eyes watched him, a little indifferently, from a
long way off; and he was a child in horror of that protruding mouth.
There came a crackling sound of her voice. He knew she had consumption of
the throat, and braced himself hard to bear the noise.
'What was it, Maud?' he asked in panic.
Then the broken, crackling voice came again. He was too terrified of the
sound of it to hear what was said. There was a pause.
'You'll take Winnie?' the publican's voice interpreted from the window.
'Don't you bother, Maud, I'll take her,' he said, stupefying his mind so
as not to understand.
He looked curiously round the room. It was not a bad bedroom, light and
warm. There were many medicine bottles aggregated in a corner of the
washstand--and a bottle of Three Star brandy, half full. And there were
also photographs of strange people on the chest of drawers. It was not a
bad room.
Again he started as if he were shot. She was speaking. He bent down, but
did not look at her.
'Be good to her,' she whispered.
When he realized her meaning, that he should be good to their child when
the mother was gone, a blade went through his flesh.
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