“I—know,” she said.
He nodded.
“Dead—dead—dead!” she said.
But he spoke then.
[253]
]“Essie is better,” he said; “she will live now.”
She caught at the palings; all the world was moving about her, the sky, the ground beneath her feet.
“Better,” she told herself—“better, better—can’t you hear?”
Then she noticed Alan’s face. It was deathly white, his lips were trembling and twitching, his eyes were wild.
“What?” she whispered.
“Meg has got it,” he said with a great sob in his voice; and he brushed past her and went away.