It seemed to the lovers' first horrified glimpse that all of Glasson's face had been blown away. The whole of one side of it was covered by an enormous blister, a nightmare thing, which, as the woman gazed at it, burst and fell into blackness. The same moment Glasson dropped his length across the threshold. "The doctor, go for doctor," whispered Vashti with dry lips, "as quick as you can--I--I dursn't turn 'en over." So Glasson lay with what had been his face against a patch of grass, while Willie ran, horror-ridden, to Perran-an-zenna for the doctor. Dry-eyed, Vashti watched by her husband for three nights, and all praised her wifely devotion. She sat by the gleam of a flickering nightlight, her eyes on the bandaged face--the linen was only slit just as much as was necessary for breathing. "Well, Mrs. Glasson," said the doctor cheerily, as he finished his inspection on the third night, "I can give you good news. Your husband will live, and will keep the sight of one eye. But--though of course wonders can be done with modern surgery--we can't build up what's gone. He'll always have to wear a mask, Mrs. Glasson." When he had gone Vashti went and stood by the bed, looking down on the unconscious man, who lay breathing heavily--how easy it would be to lay a hand over that slit in the linen--a few minutes, and this nightmare would be over. She half put out her hand, then drew it back. She was not yet capable of cold-blooded crime. Lighting a candle, she took from a drawer a paper parcel, which she unfolded on the little table. As the still untouched folds of the black dress length, with a few little hard-edged blots on it that meant tears, came into view, Vashti's self-control broke down. She wept stormily, her head along her arms. Release had flaunted so near to her, and was withdrawn, and her horror of the Thing on the bed was mingled with a pity for it that ate into her mind. She dried her burning eyes, and picking up the scissors, began to cut a mask out of the tear-stained breadths; her invincible habit of considering herself forbade her, even at that moment, to use the good yards for such a purpose. The candle-flame was showing wan in the grey of the dawning when Vashti put the last stitches to the mask--she had made it very deep, so that it would hang to just below the jawbone, and she had laboriously buttonhole-stitched round the one eye-hole, and sewn tape-strings firmly to the sides, top and bottom. The mask was finished. James Glasson's figure, a trifle stooped and groping, with that sinister black curtain from cap to collar, soon ceased to be an object of fearful curiosity in Perran-an-zenna; even the children became so used to it that they left off calling out as he passed. He grew more silent and morose than ever, and his secretiveness showed itself in all sorts of ingenious petty ways.