At midnight, after two hours' restless sleep, I awoke to find her standing before the bureau, in a gown of silver gauze, which gave her an illusive appearance of being clothed in moonlight. When I called her, and she turned and came toward me, I saw that there was a brilliant, unnatural look in her face, as though she had been dancing wildly or were in a fever. And this brilliancy seemed only to accentuate the sharpened lines of her features, with their suggestion of delicacy, of a too transparent fineness.
"You were asleep, Ben. I am sorry I waked you," she said.
"What is the matter, you are so flushed?" I asked.
"It was very warm in the theatre. I shan't go again until autumn."
"I don't believe you are well, dear. Isn't it time for you to get out of the city?"
Her arms were raised to unfasten the pearl necklace at her throat, and while I watched her face in the mirror, I saw that the flush suddenly left it and it grew deadly white.
"It's that queer pain in my back," she said, sinking into a chair, and hiding her eyes in her hands. "It comes on like this without warning. I've had it ever—ever since that year on Church Hill."
In an instant I was beside her, catching her in my arms as she swayed toward me.
"What can I do for you, dearest? Shall I get you a glass of wine?"
"No, it goes just as it comes," she answered, letting her hands fall from her face, and looking at me with a smile. "There, I'm better now, but I think you're right. I need to go out of the city. Even if I were to stay here," she added, "you would be almost always away."