Upon her brightly flowered chintz cushions Dolly lay like the shadow of her former self. The once soft, round outlines of her face had grown clear and sharp-cut, the delicate chin had lost its dimple, the transparent skin upon the temples showed a tracery of blue veins, the closed eyelids had a strange whiteness and lay upon her eyes heavily. She did not move,—she seemed scarcely to breathe. Phemie caught her own breath and held it, lest it should break from her in a sob of grief and terror.
This something awful was going to happen! She could not recover herself even when Dolly wakened and began to talk to her. She could not think of anything but her own anguish and pity for her friend. She could not talk and was so silent, indeed, that Dolly became silent too; and so, as the dusk fell upon them, they sat together in a novel quiet, listening to a band of strolling musicians, who were playing somewhere in the distance, and the sound of whose instruments floated to them, softened and made plaintive by the evening air.
At last Dolly broke the silence.
“You are very quiet, Phemie,” she said. “Are you going to sleep?”
“No,” faltered Phemie, drawing closer to her. “I am thinking.”
“Thinking. What about?”
“About you. Dolly, do you—are you very ill—worse than you were?”
“Very ill!” repeated Dolly, slowly, as if in wonder. “Worse than I was! Why do you ask?”
Then Phemie lost self-control altogether. She left her seat and fell down by the couch, bursting into tears.
“You are so altered,” she said; “and you alter so much every week. I cried over your poor, thin little hands when first I came to see you, but now your wrist looks as if it would snap in two. Oh, Dolly, darling, if—if you should die!”