'
'Good heavens, Winnie,' I exclaimed, 'what on earth is coming? But I
promised not to interrupt you. Pray go on, I am all impatience.'
'Well, at the sound of the voices the gentleman started, and seemed
much alarmed--alarmed on my account, I thought.
'I then heard a voice say, "A most successful experiment. Look at the
face of this other patient, and see the expression on it."
'The gentleman bent over me, and hurriedly raised me from the couch,
and then fairly carried me out of the room. But you seem very
excited, Henry, you have turned quite pale.'
It would have been wonderful if I had not turned pale. So deeply
burnt into my brain had been the picture I had imagined of Winnie
dead and in a pauper's grave that even now, with Winnie in my arms,
it all came to me, and I seemed to see her lying in a pauper's
shroud, and being restored to life, and I said to her, 'Did you
observe--did you observe your dress, Winnie?'
She answered my question by a little laugh. 'Did I observe my dress
at such a moment? Well, I knew you could be satirical on my sex when
you are in the mood, but, Henry, there are moments, I assure you,
when the first thing a woman observes is not her dress, and this was
one.
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