Rachel softened as the day passed. She ate a good dinner at one o'clock, with Mrs. Tams in the kitchen, one or the other mounting at short intervals to see if Mrs. Maldon had stirred. Then she changed into her second-best frock, in anticipation of the doctor's Sunday afternoon visit, strictly commanded Mrs. Tams (but with relenting kindness in her voice) to go and lie down, and established herself neatly in the sick-room.
Though her breathing had become noiseless again, Mrs. Maldon still slept. She had wakened only once since the previous night. She lay calm and dignified in slumber—an old and devastated woman, with that disconcerting resemblance to a corpse shown by all aged people asleep, but yet with little sign of positive illness save the slight distortion of her features caused by the original attack. Rachel sat idle, prim, in vague reflection, at intervals smoothing her petticoat, or giving a faint cough, or gazing at the mild blue September sky. She might have been reading a book, but she was not by choice a reader. She had the rare capacity of merely existing. Her thoughts flitted to and fro, now resting on Mrs. Maldon with solemnity, now on Mrs. Tams with amused benevolence, now on old Batchgrew with lofty disgust, and now on Louis Fores with unquiet curiosity and delicious apprehension.
She gave a little shudder of fright and instantly controlled it—Mrs. Maldon, instead of being asleep, was looking at her. She rose and went to the bedside and stood over the sick woman, by the pillow, benignly, asking with her eyes what desire of the sufferer's she might fulfil. And Mrs. Maldon looked up at her with another benignity. And they both smiled.
"You've slept very well," said Rachel softly.
Mrs. Maldon, continuing to smile, gave a scarcely perceptible affirmative movement of the head.
"Will you have some of your Revalenta? I've only got to warm it, here. Everything's ready."
"Nothing, thank you, dear," said Mrs. Maldon, in a firm, matter-of-fact voice.
The doctor had left word that food was not to be forced on her.
"Do you feel better?"
Mrs. Maldon answered, in a peculiar tone—