twisting and untwisting one within the other.

"Well," she began, in an impressive whisper, "it was young Duval shot
himself on her mat and made a bloody mess there. I mean real bloody. You
don't carry a pistol, Doctor? Savile did. You didn't know Savile. He was
my husband in the States. But I'm English, pure English. That's what I
am. Let's have a bottle of wine, I'm so nervous. Not good for me? What
the--No, you're a doctor. You know what's good against cholera. Tell me!
Tell me."

She crossed to the shutters and stared out, her hand upon the bolt, and
the bolt clacked against the wood because of the tremulous hand.

"I tell you Corinthian Kate's drunk--full as she can hold. She's always
drinking. Did you ever see my shoulder--these two marks on it? They were
given me by a man--a gentleman--the night before last. I _didn't_ fall
against any furniture. He struck me with his cane twice, the beast, the
beast, the beast! If I had been full, I'd have knocked the dust out of
him. The beast! But I only went into the verandah and cried fit to
break my heart. Oh, the beast!"

She paced the room, chafing her shoulder and crooning over it as though
it were an animal. Then she swore at the man. Then she fell into a sort
of stupor, but moaned and swore at the man in her sleep, and wailed for
her _amah_ to come and dress her shoulder.

Asleep she was not unlovely, but the mouth twitched and the body was
shaken with shiverings, and there was no peace in her at all. Daylight
showed her purple-eyed, slack-cheeked, and staring, racked with a
headache and the nervous twitches. Indeed I was seeing Life; but it did
not amuse me, for I felt that I, though I only made capital of her
extreme woe, was guilty equally with the rest of my kind that had
brought her here.

Then she told lies. At least I was informed that they were lies later on
by the real man of the world. They related to herself and her people,
and if untrue must have been motiveless, for all was sordid and
sorrowful, though she tried to gild the page with a book of photos which
linked her to her past. Not being a man of the world, I prefer to
believe that the tales were true, and thank her for the honour she did
me in the telling.

I had fancied that the house had nothing sadder to show me than her
face. Here was I wrong. Corinthian Kate had really been drinking, and
rose up reeling drunk, which is an awful thing to witness, and makes
one's head ache sympathetically.