"One minute," he said; "I hear someone coming, I think. Excuse me!"
It was Corri; he met him as he turned the handle, and drew him outside.
"There's a woman in there," he said, "and a breakfast-tray. Come down on to the next landing; I want to speak to you."
"What on earth——" said Corri. "Are you giving a party? What do you mean by a woman and a breakfast-tray? Did the woman bring the breakfast-tray?"
"No, she brought a book. It's serious."
They leant over the banisters conferring, while Mary, in the arm-chair, remained trembling with suspense. The vista opened by Kincaid's words had shown her how tenaciously she still clung to life, how passionately she would clutch at a chance of prolonging it. Awhile ago her one prayer had been to die speedily; now, with a possibility of rescue dangled before her eyes, her prayer was only for the possibility to be fulfilled. Would he be satisfied, or would he send her away? Her fate swung on the decision. She did not marvel at the tenacity; it seemed to her so natural that she did not question it at all. Yet it is of all things the oddest—the love of living which the most life-worn preserve in their hearts. Every day they long for sleep, and daily the thought of death alarms them—terrifies their inconsistent souls, though few indeed believe there is a Hell, and everybody who is good enough to believe in Heaven believes also that he is good enough to go to it.
"O God," she whispered, "make him take me! Forgive me what I did; don't let me suffer any more, God! You know how I loved him—how I loved him!"
"Well," said Corri, on the landing, "and what are you going to do?"
"I'm thinking," said Kincaid, "of letting my mother go to see her."
"It's wildly philanthropic, isn't it?"