Norma, leaning back in a great chair by the bed, mused and pondered as the slow hours went by. The softened lights touched the nurses' crisp aprons, the fire was out now, and only the two softly palpitating disks from the shaded lamps dimly illumined the room.
Annie and Theodore and Alice had all been born in this very room, Norma thought. She imagined Aunt Marianna, a handsome, stout, radiant young woman, in the bustles and pleats of the early eighties, with the flowing ruffles of Theodore's christening robe spreading over her lap. How wonderful life must have seemed to her then, rich and young, and adored by her husband, and with her first-born child receiving all the homage due the heir of the great name and fortune! Then came Annie, and some years later Alice, and how busy and happy their mother must have been with plenty of money for schools and frocks, trips to the country with her handsome, imperious children; trips to Europe when no desire need be denied them, all the world the playground for the fortunate Melroses!
How short the perspective must look now, thought Norma, to that troubled brain that was struggling among closing shadows, nearer and nearer every slow clocktick to the end. How loathsome it must be to the prisoned spirit, this handsome, stifling room, this army of maids and nurses and doctors so decorously resigned to facing the last scene of all. Why, the poorest child in the city to-night, healthily asleep in some unspeakable makeshift for a bed, possessed what all the Melrose money could not buy for this moaning, suffocating old autocrat.
"I should like to die out on a hillside, under the stars," thought Norma, "with no one to watch me. This is—somehow—so horrible!"
And she crept toward the bed and slipped to her knees again, forcing herself against her inclination—for somehow prayers seemed to have nothing to do with this scene—to pray for the departing soul.
"Norma," the old lady said, suddenly, opening her eyes. She looked quietly and intelligently at the girl.
"Yes, dear!" Norma stammered, with a frightened glance toward the nurses.
These were instantly intent, at the bedside. But Mrs. Melrose paid no attention to them. She patted Norma's hand.
"Late for you, dear!" she whispered. "Night!" Obediently she drank something the nurse put to her lips, and when she spoke it was more clearly. A moment later Doctor Murray had her pulse between his nerveless fingers. She moved her eyes lazily to smile at him. "Tide running out, old friend!" she said, in a deep, rich voice. The doctor smiled, shaking his head, but Norma saw his eyes glisten behind his glasses.
Suddenly Mrs. Melrose frowned, and began to show excitement.