He watched her relentlessly, as she
knew. And as she went, the blanket trailing, and as he saw a glimpse of
her feet and her white leg, he tried to remember her as she was when he
had wrapped her in the blanket. But then he didn't want to remember,
because she had been nothing to him then, and his nature revolted from
remembering her as she was when she was nothing to him.
A tumbling, muffled noise from within the dark house startled him. Then
he heard her voice:--'There are clothes.' He rose and went to the foot of
the stairs, and gathered up the garments she had thrown down. Then he
came back to the fire, to rub himself down and dress. He grinned at his
own appearance when he had finished.
The fire was sinking, so he put on coal. The house was now quite dark,
save for the light of a street-lamp that shone in faintly from beyond the
holly trees. He lit the gas with matches he found on the mantel-piece.
Then he emptied the pockets of his own clothes, and threw all his wet
things in a heap into the scullery. After which he gathered up her sodden
clothes, gently, and put them in a separate heap on the copper-top in the
scullery.
It was six o'clock on the clock. His own watch had stopped. He ought to
go back to the surgery. He waited, and still she did not come down. So he
went to the foot of the stairs and called:
'I shall have to go.'
Almost immediately he heard her coming down.
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