“Lie quiet, Peggy,” I said; “you may be able to speak in a minute if you lie quiet.”
The words seemed only to increase the panic in her. With a gurgling burst a fragment of speech came from her mouth:
“Be I passing?”
The doctor heard it. “Yes,” he said, brutally.
She appeared to collapse and shrink inward; but in a moment she was up, leaning on her elbow, and her face was terrible to look at.
“’Twas I killed the boy!” she cried, with a sort of breathless wail; “tell him—tell Ralph,” and so fell back, and I thought the life was gone from her.
Was I base and cruel in my triumph? I rose erect, indifferent to the tortured soul stretched beneath me.
“Who was right?” I cried. “Believe me now, you dog; and growl and curse your fill over the wreck of your futile villainy!”
His mouth was set in an incredulous grinning line. I brushed sternly past him, making for my father’s room. I could not pause or wait a moment. The poor soul’s long anguish should be ended there and then.
As I stooped over his bed I saw that some change had come upon him in sleep. The twist of his mouth was relaxed. His face had assumed something of its normal expression.