Doris sighed and looked around. They made no move as she sat up.
She left the bed and returned from a closet with a wrap over her nightgown. They watched her until her eyes turned toward them—expressionless, dead eyes. Mrs. Basine clasped her hands together and trembled.
"We must call the doctor at once," she whispered. She went to the telephone. Doris sat down in a chair near the window. Her head sank and she gazed out. The expressionless eyes grew clouded. Tears were coming out. She sat weeping without sound while her mother telephoned.
"Something has happened to Doris," Mrs. Basine whispered into the telephone, "please hurry, something has happened to her...."
"Good-bye, Doris," Lindstrum spoke.
The white face of the girl remained without movement. She was staring out the window, a lifeless figure, weeping. He approached her and watched her tears.
Outside, he walked with his head down, through the streets.
"She knew it was going to happen," he murmured to himself, "and she wanted to see me again before it did." His heart felt heavy. Doris with her dead eyes weeping. Ah, a long sigh. Hard to remember things that had been.
"Knock 'em over," he whispered aloud. "Make something ... make something." Deep inside him were hands that pantomimed despair. People in the streets. War was coming to them. "Huh," he said slowly, "they tore her heart out." Everybody knew him. Everybody knew the name Lindstrum. It was the name of a great poet. When he was dead Lindstrum would stay alive. "Huh," he whispered, "I don't know.... Sing to them. Yes...."
His teeth bit into the pipe stem. Tears came from his eyes. He walked along in the night snarling with his lips parted, and weeping.