He placed her on the pillow and called to her again. He wrapped his fingers about her wrist. He put his ear against her breast, half groaning, half calling: "Ann! Ann!"
It was still in the room. He arose from the bedside and slightly raising his face, which was drawn and ashy gray, he called: "Ann! Ann!"
Again the silence.
Then with such a groan as voices the agony of the human soul, he whispered hoarsely: "My God—why hast Thou forsaken me!"
A moment later, Mrs. Rutledge and Dr. Allen who were standing beside Davy's bedside heard someone step into the doorway.
They looked around. There in the open way that made a rude frame they saw a picture of unutterable sorrow. Deep as the still foundations of the finest soul, the hurt had struck. Like some monarch of a timber-line twisted by titanic force, so he seemed to have been ruthlessly stormbeaten out of semblance to his former self. The little lines that had traced their way on a young man's face seemed suddenly to have grown deep as by long erosion, and he was as pallid as a dead child.
He seemed to be making an effort to speak. The muscles of his face twitched. No sound came from his lips, but they framed the word: "Ann!"
"Abraham, what is it?" Mrs. Rutledge cried in alarm.
Dr. Allen ran to Ann's bedside, Mrs. Rutledge following. The man in the doorway waited until he heard a mother crying: "No—no, she is not dead!"
Then he was gone.