Dick and Graham stood apart from Paula while Doctor Robinson made his examination. When he arose with an air of finality, Dick looked his question. Robinson shook his head.
“Nothing to be done,” he said. “It is a matter of hours, maybe of minutes.” He hesitated, studying Dick’s face for a moment. “I can ease her off if you say the word. She might possibly recover consciousness and suffer for a space.”
Dick took a turn down the room and back, and when he spoke it was to Graham.
“Why not let her live again, brief as the time may be? The pain is immaterial. It will have its inevitable quick anodyne. It is what I would wish, what you would wish. She loved life, every moment of it. Why should we deny her any of the little left her?”
Graham bent his head in agreement, and Dick turned to the doctor.
“Perhaps you can stir her, stimulate her, to a return of consciousness. If you can, do so. And if the pain proves too severe, then you can ease her.”
When her eyes fluttered open, Dick nodded Graham up beside him. At first bewilderment was all she betrayed, then her eyes focused first on Dick’s face, then on Graham’s, and, with recognition, her lips parted in a pitiful smile.
“I... I thought at first that I was dead,” she said.
But quickly another thought was in her mind, and Dick divined it in her eyes as they searched him. The question was if he knew it was no accident. He gave no sign. She had planned it so, and she must pass believing it so.