m ill."

"I said to my sister how strong and bright you were. We both thought
you'd make a--well, a _new_ man of Mr. Merrick."

"It's only his mother's dying like that. He was worried about her, and
then she died; and he just went to pieces. He had to be put to bed at
once. I'll put him to bed again as soon as we've had something to eat.
He's so _weak_. It's the change he wants, and the fresh air."

"And you too, my dear." Mrs. Tennant seemed really to be kind.

"When he's asleep I'll go for a walk. I'll soon be well." Sally was
reassuring; but she was made aware of her own weakness by having had
attention drawn to the appearance of it.

They parted with smiles. Sally made as if to re-enter the bedroom; but,
instead, she went through the drawing-room and on to the balcony. The
river was running swiftly up-stream, so that the thick mud was hidden.
Back along its course came little floating masses of collected material,
like miniature islands in progress up and down the river. Sally stood
watching one of these masses, until it grew indistinct as the result of
her intentness. The sun was making the houses beyond the river glitter
anew, and the whole town was beautified in its light. A feeling of great
misery seized Sally. She stared down at the discoloured stream, and her
eyes filled with tears. She was again consumed with a sense of
loneliness; and a faint horror of the returning tide caused her to break
once again from her contemplation, to walk back through the
drawing-room, and to rejoin Gaga. He was sitting upon the bed, regarding
with a vacant expression the two dressing-cases which had been brought
up to the room and which stood together against the wall. The room was
cold and dark. Sally impulsively went to the French windows opening upon
the balcony and drew back the curtains.

"There now," she said. "You're going to get better. You can see the
sun."

Gaga smiled gently. Sally came back to him and stood with her hand
ruffling his thin hair. She too smiled, but with abstraction. She was
numbed by illness and horror and the journey and her vision of the dirty
merciless water.

xx

When they had eaten their lunch, Sally helped Gaga to undress and left
him in bed with the curtains again closed and the bedroom, thus
darkened, smelling close and dank, as if it were the haunt of
blackbeetles. When the curtains were drawn the whole room faded to a
uniformity of grey-brown, and the pictures and ornaments becam