Reassured as to the mouse, Maude approached with her saucepan still clutched in her hand.  There could be no doubt either as to the woman or the sleep.  She lay in an untidy heap, her head under the table, and her figure sprawling.  She appeared to be a very large woman.

‘Hullo!’ cried Frank, shaking her by the shoulder.  ’Hullo, you there!’

But the woman slumbered peacefully on.

‘Heh, wake up, wake up!’ he shouted, and pulled her up into a sitting position.  But she slept as soundly sitting as lying.

‘The poor thing must be ill,’ said Maude.  ’O Frank, shall I run for a doctor?’

‘Wake up, woman, wake up!’ Frank yelled, and danced her up and down.  She flopped about like a sawdust doll, with her arms swinging in front of her.  He panted with his exertions, but she was serenely unconscious.  At last he had to lower her on to the floor again, putting a footstool under her head.

‘It’s no go,’ said he.  ’I can make nothing of her.  She will sleep it off.’

‘You don’t mean to say, Frank, that she is—­’

‘Indeed I do.’

‘How horrible!’

‘That kettle is boiling now.  Suppose we have our supper.’

’Dear Frank, I could not enjoy my supper with that unfortunate woman lying there.  O Frank, I know that you could not either.’

‘Bless her!’ said Frank bitterly, as he gazed at the inert lump.  ’I really don’t see why we should put ourselves out for her.  She is quite comfortable.’

‘Oh I couldn’t, Frank.  It would seem inhuman.’

‘What are we to do, then?’

‘We must put her to bed.’

‘Great heavens!’

‘Yes, dear, it is our duty to put her to bed.’

’But look here, my dear girl, we must be practical.  The woman weighs half a ton, and the bedrooms are at the top of the house.  It’s simply impossible.’

’Don’t you think, Frank, that if you took her head and I took her feet, we might get her up?’

‘Not up the stair, dear.  She is enormous.’

‘Well, then, on to the drawing-room sofa,’ said Maude.  ’I could have my supper, if I knew that she was safe upon the sofa.’

So Frank, seeing that there was no help for it, seized her under the arms, and Maude took her ankles, and they bore her, bulging but serene, down the passage.  They staggered exhausted into the drawing-room, and the new sofa groaned beneath the weight.  It was a curious and unsavoury inaugural ceremony.  Maude put a rug over the prostrate form, and they returned to their boiling kettle and their uncooked eggs.  Then they laid the table, and served the supper, and enjoyed this picnic meal of their own creating as no conventional meal could ever have been enjoyed.  Everything seemed beautiful to the young wife—­the wall-paper, the pictures, the carpet, the rug; but to him, she was so beautiful in mind, and soul, and body, that her presence turned the little room into an enchanted chamber.  They sat long together, and marvelled at their own happiness—­that pure serene happiness of mere companionship, which is so much more intimate and deeper than all the transports of passion.