that she lies, thinking me sleeping—puts her hands to me, then draws them back—finally, like a miser with a piece of gold, catches up a lock of my hair and presses it to her mouth.
I know that I am conscious of the heat of her, the unfamiliar bulk and sour scents of her. I know that she falls swiftly into an even sleep, and snores, while I start in and out of slumber. The fitful sleeping makes the hours pass slowly: it seems to me the night has many nights in it—has years of nights!—through which, as if through drifts of smoke, I am compelled to stumble. I wake now, believing I am in my dressing-room at Briar; now, in my room at Mrs Cream''s; now, in a madhouse bed, with a nurse vast and comfortable beside me. I wake, a hundred times. I wake to moan and long for slumber—for always, at the last, comes the remembrance,