Lying there, with her face swollen and stamped with the carpet-nap, squirming in a grief that was actually abashing before it was heartbreaking, Ann 'Lisbeth Connors, whose only epiphany of life was love, and shut out from so much else that helps make life sweet, was now shut out from none of its pain.
Once she scratched at the door, a faint, dog-like scratch for admission, and then sat back on her heels, staring at the uncompromising panel, holding back the audibility of her sobs with her hand.
Heart-constricting silence, and only the breath of ether seeping out to her, sweet, insidious. She took to hugging herself violently against a sudden chill that rushed over her, rattling her frame.
The bedroom door swung noiselessly back, fanning out the etheric fumes, and closed again upon an emerging figure.
"Doctor—quick—God!—What?"
He looked down upon her with the kind of glaze over his eyes that Bellini loved to paint, compassion for the pain of the world almost distilled to tears.
"Doctor—he ain't—"
"My poor little lady!"
"O God—no—no—no! No, Doctor, no! You wouldn't! Please! Please! You wouldn't let him leave me here all alone, Doctor! O God! you wouldn't! I'm all alone, Doctor! You see, I'm all alone. Please don't take him from me. He's mine! You can't! Promise me, Doctor! My darlin' in there—why are you hurtin' him so? Why has he stopped hollerin'? Cut me to pieces to give him what he needs to make him live. Don't take him from me, Doctor. He's all I got! O God—God—please!" And fell back swooning, with an old man's tear splashing down as if to revivify her.
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