CHAPTER XLVI
MAN AND WIFE
TOWARDS evening, the Dane was brought to the cottage.
A feeling of pride which forbade any display of curiosity, strengthened perhaps by an irresistible horror of Vimpany, kept Iris in her room. Nothing but the sound of footsteps, outside, told her when the suffering man was taken to his bed-chamber on the same floor. She was, afterwards informed by Fanny that the doctor turned down the lamp in the corridor, before the patient was helped to ascend the stairs, as a means of preventing the mistress of the house from plainly seeing the stranger's face, and recognising the living likeness of her husband.
The hours advanced—the bustle of domestic life sank into silence—everybody but Iris rested quietly in bed.
Through the wakeful night the sense of her situation
