‘I looked at the General’s portrait while he besought us,’ Virginia replied.
‘One sees him in Victor, at Victor’s age. Try to sleep.’
‘I do. I pray that you may.’
Silence courted slumber. Their interchange of speech from the posture of bodies on their backs, had been low and deliberate, in the tone of the vaults. Dead silence recalled the strangeness of it. The night was breathless; their open window a peril bestowing no boon. They were mutually haunted by sound of the gloomy query at the nostrils of each when drawing the vital breath. But for that, they thought they might have slept.
Bed spake to bed:
‘The words of Mr. Stuart Rem last Sunday!’ ‘He said: “Be just.” Could one but see direction!’
‘In obscurity, feeling is a guide.’
‘The heart.’
‘It may sometimes be followed.’
‘When it concerns the family.’