Up and down, up and down he goes, his weakly head bent upon his chest, his fierce eyes roving restlessly to and fro. He is still invalid enough to prefer the chair to the more treacherous aid of his stick.
"He reminds me of nothing so much as an Egyptian mummy," says Philip, presently: "he looks so hard, and shriveled, and unreal. Toothless, too."
"He ought to die," says Marcia, with perfect calmness, as though she had suggested the advisability of his going for a longer drive.
"Die!" With a slight start, turning to look at her. "Ah! yes, of course. But"—with a rather forced laugh—"he won't, take my word for it. Old gentlemen with unlimited means and hungry heirs live forever."
"He has lived long enough," says Marcia, still in the same slow, calculating tone. "Of what use is he? Who cares for him? What good does he do in each twenty-four hours? He is merely taking up valuable room,—keeping what should by right be yours and mine. And, Philip," laying her hand upon his arm to insure his attention,—"I understand the mother of this girl who is coming was his favorite daughter."
"Well," surprised at her look and tone, which have both grown intense,—"that is not my fault. You need not cast such an upbraiding glance on me."
"What if he should alter his will in her favor? More unlikely things have happened. I cannot divest myself of fear when I think of her. Should he at this late hour repent him of his injustice toward his dead daughter, he might——" She pauses. "But rather than that——" Here she pauses again; and her lids falling somewhat over her eyes, leave them small but wonderfully deep.
"What, Marcia?" asks Philip, with a sudden anxiety he would willingly suppress, were it not for his strong desire to learn what her thoughts may be.
For a full minute she makes him no reply, and then, as though hardly aware of his question, goes on meditatively.
"Philip, how frail he is!" she says, almost in a whisper, as the chair goes creaking beneath the window. "Yet what a hold he has on life! And it is I give him that hold,—I am the rope to which he clings. At night, when sleep is on him and lethargy succeeds to sleep, mine is the duty to rouse him and minister such medicines as charm him back to life. Should I chance to forget, his dreams might end in death. Last night, as I sat by his bedside, I thought, were I to forget,—what then?"