“I?” He was blank.
“If she thought—if she knew that some other hope she may have had for Julia—was—couldn’t you make her know?”
At this he fixed her with his old diabolical glint.
“You mean I could congratulate her—heartily?”
Her answering smile was wan. She left it to him.
He looked back at her once as he went down the stair.
She held herself still until he was out of hearing. Then, on tiptoe, she stole down the hall to the door, and hesitated with beating heart. There was nothing in the world she so dreaded, nothing she so much wanted, as to see Longacre, to hear his voice. She slipped into the room, expecting to find it somehow extraordinarily changed, revolutionized. There was a change. It was in the man who lay upon the bed.
He lay, eyes closed, face quiet. But, ah, asleep! The strong structure of the face came out startling in its emaciation. She looked at that face, dwelt upon it, saw in the salient lines something she had been seeking since she had known it. Dared she think this had come through her—the last thing she had given him! She waited to see those obstinate lids unclose.
She had come so lightly he had not heard her. She would not for the world have spoken, but if she looked at him—he must know she was looking at him!
Then, as he lay so still, not a muscle of the sensitive mouth moving, breathing lightly, regularly, it came upon her that he wished her to suppose him asleep.