But I didn't understand, as perhaps she guessed from my quivering voice.
"I wish I could make you—really understand," she sighed. "I—I'm different from other women. I can't take things as they do—as you would. But—I told you once, before, whatever happens I love him."
"I'm sure you do," I answered, as I opened the door and slipped softly out. Yet that wasn't so true as it had been a few minutes ago. I felt as if I'd been through an earthquake which had shaken me up without warning.
"I'm glad that it was I and not Sir Beverley who told her," I said to myself. But I said it sadly. The sunshine was dimmed. I longed like a child to escape from that house—escape quickly, and run to Jim's arms as to a fortress.
Sir Beverley kept his promise, and sent for a man who had worked with him in his experiments. Then he went back to Exeter, promising to return if he were sent for, or in any case to look in once a fortnight.
There was no need, however, to send for him. Ralston Murray got on—as the new man, Doctor Thomas, said—"like a house on fire."
At first there was little change to be noticed in his appearance. It was only that the bad symptoms, the constant high temperature, the agonizing pains in all the bones, and the deadly weakness, diminished and presently ceased. Then, the next time Jim and I called, I cried out: "Why, you are fatter!"
Murray laughed with a gay, almost boyish ring in his laugh. "Transformation of the Living Skeleton into the Fat Man!" he cried. "What a happy world this is, after all, and I'm the happiest man in it; that is, I would be, if Rosemary weren't shrinking as rapidly as I increase. What are we to do with her? She says she's perfectly well. But look at her little face."
We looked at it, and though she smiled as brightly as she could, the smile was camouflage. Always pearly, her skin was dead white now. Even the lips had lost their coral red, though she bit them to bring back the blood, and a slight hollow had broken the exquisite oval of her cheeks. Her eyes looked far too big; and even her hair had dulled, losing something of its moonlight sheen.