“The boy?” she said to Hazen. “The boy is dead!”
The dim-lit kitchen was very quiet for a little time. I felt myself breathe deeply, almost with relief. The thing for which I had waited—it had come. And I looked at Hazen Kinch.
He had always been a little thin man. He was shrunken now and very white and very still. Only his face twitched. A muscle in one cheek jerked and jerked and jerked at his mouth. It was as though he controlled a desire to smile. That jerking, suppressed smile upon his white and tortured countenance was terrible. I could see the blood drain down from his forehead, down from his cheeks. He became white as death itself.
After a little he tried to speak. I do not know what he meant to say. But what he did was to repeat—as though he had not heard her words—the question which he had flung at her in the beginning. He said huskily: “Where is the boy?”
She looked toward the bed and Hazen looked that way; and then he went across to the bed with uncertain little steps. I followed him. I saw the little twisted body there. The woman had been keeping it warm, with her own body. It must have been in her arms when we came in. The tumbled coverings, the crushed pillows spoke mutely of a ferocious intensity of grief.
Hazen looked down at the little body. He made no move to touch it, but I heard him whisper to himself: “Fine boy.”
After a while he looked at the woman. She seemed to feel an accusation in his eyes. She said: “I did all I could.”
He asked: “What was it?”
I had it in me—though I had reason enough to despise the little man—to pity Hazen Kinch.
“He coughed,” said the woman. “I knew it was croup. You know I asked you to get the medicine—ipecac. You said no matter—no need—and you had gone.”