"I think the fever isn't quite so bad—she hasn't been wandering so much this afternoon."
Mabel had lain almost motionless all this time, but now her pale lips began to move, although for some moments no sound issued from them. Then she began to speak in a voice so thin and weak that Mona could hardly recognize it.
For some time they could make nothing of her words, and only tried to soothe her, but after a while it became clear to them that she was repeating something which sounded like poetry. Still they could make nothing out of it, for sometimes several words would be lost from a line, and occasionally a whole line would be repeated by those pale lips without a sound.
At length Minnie caught a whole line. What the words were which went before she could not tell, but the words she caught came clear and distinct:
"It went up Single, Echoless,—'My God I am deserted.'"
The words "Single, Echoless" were uttered with a strange sort of triumphant emphasis which struck both the girls, and then the feeble voice went on more brokenly even than before with a few lines more, and then suddenly ceased.
Minnie repeated the line over.
"I wonder what it is from," she said. "I am sure I have read it often, but I cannot remember where."
"I can't tell just at this minute either," remarked Mona, "I know it perfectly well though. If we could only get hold of it, reading it to her might do her any amount of good."
"That is just what I was thinking about," returned Minnie, "I wish we could find it."