“You know as well as I do what I mean.”
“Sydney.” His voice was weaker.
The effort by which Sydney moved her limbs and went to Neil’s side was painful to watch, like the first steps of a Frankenstein conception. She bent over him a little and laid her hand across his eyes.
“It’s all right, Neil. There is nothing wrong. I didn’t mean there was. It has been so hard for you. So bad I can’t remember how bad. If I remembered I’d die. Perhaps you are remembering. Don’t let it kill you, dear. For you and I have so much to do. We are going to go on from where we laid our story down—was it a year ago? I’m sure we can find the very page, paragraph and sentence where we left off.”
Neil smiled. It was the smile of a blind person, sweet and helpless. He moved a little nearer Sydney, and lay perfectly still. How long the three in the room remained speechless and motionless it would have been hard to say. It was Belknap who disturbed two of them; the third was beyond all further disturbance.
XXI
“What have we here—a séance?” Belknap asked from the door.
Nadia quivered and shrank back against the wall as she turned to face Belknap. Her hands, with spread fingers, formed a spidery white pattern against the room’s daring modernistic wall-paper of black shot with gold. Her eyes wavered, and Belknap saw them consider the open window leading to the roof of the porte-cochère.
“Mr. Belknap!” she breathed.
“Your humble servant.” Belknap closed the door, turned its key and pocketed the key, and crossed to the bed.