Then I knew. We both pretended to Lilia to think nothing of the rigours which shook her and turned her lips blue over her chattering teeth; but I stole my opportunity, rushed downstairs, sent off a telegram to Dr. Taylor, despatched a messenger for the Mervyns. I could not face this alone: I turned coward. I “groaned in my anguish, and the thorn fastened in me.”
And when I went back—the pity of it—Nurse struggling to lift the pale, suffering darling into bed, and baby crying piteously in the next room; while she said piteously to me, “He might be quiet till I get warm, mightn’t he?”
Poor infant! if he were quiet till his mother got warm, he would never cry again.
I sent Nurse to quiet him, and waited on her myself. I did everything, I hazarded everything I dared, to bring about a reaction. But presently she complained of her chest.
“I feel as if they had taken one of those hideous flat stones off a grave and laid it on my chest,” she said, gazing at me with eyes that looked bluer and more staring than those dear grey eyes had ever looked. “What is it? Is there anything wrong with my heart, Hugh! Tell me, is it my heart?” (with alarm).
“Stuff!” I said. “I let you sit up too long, and you are chilly, that’s all.”
Then I began, watching her stealthily, to talk as easily as I could.
Her features were paling into an ugly yellow, her eyes were sinking, and her nose looked pinched. Nurse, coming to the bed with a cheerful “Well, dear, are you all right now?” gave me a look that, knowing well enough what was happening, stabbed my very soul.
“Rather quick, don’t you think so?” she managed to whisper to me.
She need not have whispered. I knew my wife was sinking away from me as fast as any human being has ever sunk from time into eternity.