But Laurence was better, surely better, they all said so.... Hardly any fever....
But his strength was gone—eaten up by that burning fire.... Was he drifting away, calm, without pain, like this, had he gone too far to come back? Surely he was far away, that was what his look meant.... Untroubled ... indifferent ... he didn't care, it seemed. He wasn't interested. Just looking on, a mere spectator, no emotion, perhaps a slight amusement.... His eyes closed, he was breathing evenly and quietly.
Strange to see him like this, his restless and passionate spirit stilled, so drawn away, so detached; it was not mere physical weakness, it was as though he were ceasing to be identified with this weakened body, deliberately withdrawing from it. This was not Laurence.... It was Laurence who had looked at her in that first return to consciousness, with eyes of love ... and then with that remote and passionless look, as though he had already said good-bye....
The wasted years.... Years that she had wasted ... when he had lived his life, near her but apart, when she had held him away—for what?... He had loved life, had been so intensely living. Now it seemed he didn't care. He would make no effort to live—he was tired. They might try all they could to keep him. He would slip away, perhaps, through their fingers, with that glimmer of a smile at them.... She would be punished. It was just. She had no reason to feel injured, to complain. As she had sowed, she would reap.... A mortal chill was at her heart.
That night she could not sleep. The strong coffee she had taken keyed her up; her heart beat nervously, a stream of restless thoughts rushed through her brain. At intervals she would get up and look into the sickroom. The night-nurse would be moving about, or sitting in the large chair at the foot of the bed; all seemed quiet. Toward morning Mary fell into a doze; troubled, uneasy, with the feeling that some one was calling her, she must rouse herself. She woke suddenly in the dawn, and heard a low moaning in the next room. She sprang up and went in. The nurse said:
"I was just going to call you. I have to go down and get some ice. There's a little more fever. Will you see he doesn't get uncovered? Keep the blankets that way over his chest."
There was a dull flush again on his face, his hands were moving restlessly, and he kept up that low moan of distress. Mary kept the blankets over him, careful not to touch him, for her hands were icy cold. The nurse came back with the cracked ice and filled a rubber bag which she bound on his head.
"When did you notice this change?"