She insisted on doing her share of the offices needful to the sick.
She arranged his bed so that it was possible to change the
sheet without disturbing him. She washed him. When I
remarked on her competence, she told me with that pleasant
little smile of hers that for a while she had worked in a hospital.
She gave no sign that she hated Strickland so desperately.
She did not speak to him much, but she was quick to
forestall his wants. For a fortnight it was necessary that
someone should stay with him all night, and she took turns at
watching with her husband. I wondered what she thought during
the long darkness as she sat by the bedside. Strickland was a
weird figure as he lay there, thinner than ever, with his
ragged red beard and his eyes staring feverishly into vacancy;
his illness seemed to have made them larger, and they had an
unnatural brightness.
"Does he ever talk to you in the night?" I asked her once.
"Never."
"Do you dislike him as much as you did?"
"More, if anything."
She looked at me with her calm gray eyes. Her expression was
so placid, it was hard to believe that she was capable of the
violent emotion I had witnessed.
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