"Oh," he cried, "come! You must come with me. See, I have money. Seven, eight hundred, I think. That will last a long time. We can go somewhere; I can get work; no one will find us."
"And that," she asked, "is all you offer? Eight hundred dollars, and a life in hiding!"
He began to understand, this poor Jim, but it was too much to grasp all at once. "You're fooling me, aren't you? Don't; I can't bear it. Say you'll come with me!" Beseeching her with open arms, he went toward her so eagerly that to avoid him she slipped around the table and went to the door. Then as she looked back at him, awkwardly pursuing, she saw him as she had never seen him before. He had rumpled his hair again: none but a manly head looks well when mussed. His eyes were bloodshot, his mouth open; she turned away in disgust, and looked into the hallway to measure her retreat.
There she saw her husband sitting, upright in his chair. With a sudden movement she threw the curtains wide apart and revealed him to Jim. "See," she said. "I have a protector. Now will you leave me?"
A protector! Jim, at first startled, saw the open mouth, the glazing eyes. He pointed, gasping; she saw and was frightened. In three steps she was at her husband's side; she grasped his arm. He was dead! Then she recovered herself. The doctor had said this might happen.
"He is—is——" hesitated Jim. "Oh, come back here; shut it out!"
"I shall call the servants," she answered. "You had better go."
"Go? And you are free! Lydia," he cried in despair, "for the last time, come with me!"
Cold and steady, she returned the proper response. "And you ask me that in his dead presence! Free, when his death claims my duty to him? Go with you, when I should stay and mourn him?"