He came up to her,
she bent down and kissed him, then put her arm round him and led him
away.
When they had gone Bohun also went back to bed. The house was very still
and peaceful. Suddenly he remembered the picture. It would never do, he
thought, if in the morning it were found by Sacha or Uncle Ivan with its
face to the wall. After hesitating he lit his own candle, got out of bed
again, and went down the passage.
"The funny thing was," he said, "that I really expected to find it just
as it always was, face outwards.... as though the whole thing really had
been a dream. But it wasn't. It had its face to the wall all right. I
got a chair, turned it round, and went back to bed again."
XIII
That night, whether as a result of my interview with Semyonov I do not
know, my old enemy leapt upon me once again. I had, during the next
three days, one of the worst bouts of pain that it has ever been my
fortune to experience. For twenty-four hours I thought it more than any
man could bear, and I hid my head and prayed for death; during the next
twenty-four I slowly rose, with a dim far-away sense of deliverance; on
the third day I could hear, in the veiled distance, the growls of my
defeated foe.
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