“But uncle is not seriously ill now, dear.”
“How do we know, Mary? He is not as he should be. I know—I feel that he is in an unnatural state.”
Mary slowly rose, walked across the room to the washstand, and stood there for some minutes before turning to her cousin.
“There,” she said; “now I feel as you do—that it would be impossible to sleep. Let’s have a quiet talk about uncle, and see if we cannot devise some means for making him think less about the quarry and money. Oh, Claudie, what a happy world this would be if there were no money and no love.”
Claude made no reply but sat gazing out through the window at the sea, where the moon, now high in the heavens, sent a path of silvery light along the dark waters, while, from far below, the waves washed and whispered among the rocks with a musical, plashing sound that rose in a drowsy murmur to the window against which she sat.
“Claude, dear, shall I shut the window now? Isn’t it too cool on a night like this?”
Claude turned to her, and looked rather vacantly in her face.
“The tide is going out fast, Mary,” she said, in a low, dreamy whisper. “Don’t you ever feel that there may be some truth in what they say, that people who are near the end pass away from us with the falling tide?”
“Claudie, dear, are you going to be ill?”
“I hope not.”