Michael was conscious of the scent of these every now and then, and at intervals of the faint, rather sickly smell of ether.

A Japan screen, ornamented with storks in gold thread, stood near the door and half-concealed the washing-stand.

There was a chest of drawers on one side of the fireplace, a wardrobe with a looking-glass door on the other, a dressing-table to one side of the window, a few prints on the plain blue walls, and a dark blue drugget carpet on the floor; and all these ordinary appurtenances of a bedroom etched themselves into Michael's mind, biting their way into it by the acid of his own suspense.
Finally there was the bed where his mother lay.

The coverlet of blue silk upon it he knew was somehow familiar to him, and after fitful gropings in his mind to establish the association, he remembered that it had been on the bed in her room in Curzon Street, and supposed that it had been brought here with others of her personal belongings.

A little core of light, focused on one of the brass balls at the head of the bed, caught his eye, and he saw that the sun, beginning to decline, came in under the Venetian blind.