"Ah," he said. "Well, I have ordered her not to talk. But does she ask any questions?" he continued.
"No," I said; "not of me. She has not asked one."
I saw then that the same vague fear which was filling my heart was taking shape in his.
From that moment, he watched her hourly, with an anxiety which soon betrayed itself to my aunt.
"William, why does not Annie get stronger?" she said suddenly to him one day.
"I do not know why," he answered, with a solemn sadness and emphasis in his tone which was, as I think, he intended it to be, a partial revelation to her, and a warning. Aunt Ann staggered to a chair and looked at him without a word. He answered her look by one equally agonized and silent, and left the room.
The baby was now two weeks old. Annie was no stronger than on the day of his birth. She lay day and night in a tranquil state, smiling with inexpressible sweetness when she was spoken to, rarely speaking of her own accord, doing with gentle docility all she was told to do, but looking more and more like a transfigured saint. All the arch, joyous, playful look was gone; there was no added age in the look which had taken its place; neither any sorrow; but something ineffably solemn, rapt, removed from earth. Sometimes, when Edward came to her bedside, a great wave of pitying tenderness would sweep over her face, giving it such a heavenly look that he would fall on his knees.
"O Helen," he said once, after such a moment as this, "I shall go mad if Annie does not get well. I do not dare to kiss even her hand. I feel as if she never had been mine."
At last the day and the hour and the moment came which I had known would come. Annie spoke to me in a very gentle voice, and said,--
"Helen, darling, you know I am going to die?"