There was a sudden sharp noise behind her, near the bed.
She started violently and glanced round in fear. It was merely the book—the harmless and amusing “The Lady or the Tiger?”—which had slipped from the bed to the floor. Yet how could it have slipped? Had the paralytic, who was incapable of the slightest movement, after all twitched a limb and so shaken the book off the bed? Absurd. She had merely placed the book too close to the edge of the bed; that was all. Nothing more natural, nothing more probable. Her nervous fright was grotesque.
She rose, picked up the book, and looked again at her charge. The burning, blazing eyes were still dropping tears, and the tears ran in a deep furrow down either cheek. Softly Pauline wiped them away, her own eyes moist. The tragedy of the life’s end of this old, old woman, whom every one had regarded as fierce and formidable, rendered helpless in a moment by no one knew what horrible visitation, chilled her heart’s core.
“What can she want? What is troubling her?” thought Pauline frenziedly.
And then she imagined that perhaps she had mistaken all the symptoms of those eyes, and that Mrs. Ilam had wished her to continue to read. She resumed the book, and read very slowly in a fairly loud voice. And instantly the eyes began to blink irregularly—fast, then slow—and the eyeballs themselves moved slightly from side to side. Obviously the patient was not content.
Pauline put down the book again in despair.
The eyeballs still moved slightly to and fro.
“She wants something in the room. What can it be?”’ said Pauline to herself. “It may be she is thirsty.”
She went to the night-table and poured a few drops of water into the invalid’s cup, and brought it near Mrs. Ilam’s lips. But the eyes seemed to close as if in refusal, and the face, which could only wear one expression—that of grief—to deepen its inexpressible melancholy.
And then an idea occurred to Pauline, and shone on her brow like a light.