The red-hot agony of it was unbearable, and as Trenby bore her out of the yard he felt her body grow suddenly limp in his arms and, glancing down, saw that she had lost consciousness.
When Nan came to herself again it was to find she was lying on a hard little horse-hair sofa, and the first object upon which her eyes rested was a nightmare arrangement of wax flowers, carefully preserved from risk of damage by a glass shade.
She was feeling stiff and sore, and the strangeness of her surroundings bewildered her--the sofa upholstered in slippery American cloth and hard as a board to her aching limbs, the waxen atrocity beneath its glass shade standing on a rickety table at the foot of the couch, the smallness of the room in which she found herself.
"Where am I ?" she asked in a weak voice that was hardly more than a whisper.
Someone--a woman--said quickly: "Ah, she's coming round!" and bustled, out of the room.

Then came Roger's voice: "You're all right, Nan--all right." And she felt his big hands close round her two slender ones reassuringly.

"Don't be frightened." She raised her head to find Roger kneeling beside the sofa on which she lay.
"I'm not frightened," she said.

"Only--what's happened?
.

.