Already the face looked like that of a corpse. The lips were a little parted, as if the strength to close them was gone, and the upper teeth showed through them in a ghastly fashion.
And yet it seemed to the husband bending over her that there was some slight return of strength, of consciousness, in the face beneath him. It was so slight as to be all but unseen by any, save one passionately interested either in her recovery or her death. If, after all—-
He bent still lower, and then raised himself with a frown and a quick sigh. No, he had been mistaken. Death would be her portion this night. The two men who had just left had said it. Well, they were right. She would die to-night.
He sat down in a distant arm-chair that still gave him a full view of the bed, and gazed with uncompromising sternness at the form thereon.
He fell a-musing again. How death-like she looked! How close to the last breath! Just a step one way or the other—this way to life, that way to the grave. A touch, a single movement, and she would be beyond the line that divides the darkness from the light.
Great heavens! how, even in the helplessness of her, her face retains its old expression! The vulgar sneer still dominates it, the drawn lips are still replete with venom. What a life he has had with her! A life? Nay, a death.
The night was descending, but out of the misty darkness of the room a girl's face stood—calm, cold, lovely. There from the end of the room it looked at him, the eyes shining clear as day and full of truth.
He turned uneasily, and rose and began to pace the room stealthily, silently, yet with a sort of cruel spring in every step. It was as though he could hardly keep himself in; as if some vitality within him was at work, and urged him forward— forward—always forward.
Why had the accident been so slow a thing? Death—instantaneous death—how much more merciful it would have been to her, to him! A heavier fall, by half an inch or so, and all would have been at an end. There would have been no more room left for doubt, for fear, or for joy. He did not mince matters to himself as he walked there to and fro like a caged lion. He was strong enough to tell himself the truth.
He stopped himself in his strange hurrying up and down, and once more approached the bed. He bent over her and lifted her hand that lay so miserably helpless within his, and then let it fall again.