Her look was significant.
Perior felt his heart shake a little as he went round the white curtain. He was afraid. If he should blunder—stab the ebbing life with some stupidity! Something of this tender fear showed in his look at the dying girl, and the fear deepened for a moment to acutest pain at sight of her. Was that the Mary he had last seen sitting over the account books?—the Mary he had fatuously told to keep cheerful? Remorse wrung his heart. But as for the fear of hurting her, Mary was very far beyond all little mundane tremors, and they faded away, ashamed for having been, as he clasped her hand, and met her eyes; their still smile quieted even his pain, and wrapped him in its awe and beauty.
He sat down beside her, keeping her hand in his.
“Dear Mary,” he said.
For a long time she did not speak; indeed Perior thought that she might not wish to employ the coarser medium of communication, could not, perhaps; her eyes, as they rested upon him, seemed amply significant; but he could not fathom, quite, their ultimate meaning. Perhaps a great sadness underlay their calm. But at last, very faintly and very slowly she said—
“You saw Camelia.”
“Yes.”
“You know—that I was—cruel to Camelia?”
“No, I did not know.”
“I was.”