“Never mind that,” she said. “You didn't do it. I guess you and I understand each other. Only pray God you never have a child.”
K. never forgot the scene in the small emergency ward to which Johnny had been taken. Under the white lights his boyish figure looked strangely long. There was a group around the bed—Max Wilson, two or three internes, the night nurse on duty, and the Head.
Sitting just inside the door on a straight chair was Sidney—such a Sidney as he never had seen before, her face colorless, her eyes wide and unseeing, her hands clenched in her lap. When he stood beside her, she did not move or look up. The group around the bed had parted to admit Mrs. Rosenfeld, and closed again. Only Sidney and K. remained by the door, isolated, alone.
“You must not take it like that, dear. It's sad, of course. But, after all, in that condition—”
It was her first knowledge that he was there. But she did not turn.
“They say I poisoned him.” Her voice was dreary, inflectionless.
“You—what?”
“They say I gave him the wrong medicine; that he's dying; that I murdered him.” She shivered.
K. touched her hands. They were ice-cold.
“Tell me about it.”