A spark, a quick gleam in her eyes, rewarded him. Her hands, crossed in her lap, trembled a little.
"It is all of a dark and somber splendor," O'Neill continued. "A great, splendid room, Senora, uncanny with echoes. And in the middle of it, like a little white island, there is a narrow bed where he lies through the days and nights, camping on the borders of the grave. There are some of us that share the watches by his bedside, to be ready with the drug that holds him to life; and I can tell you that it is sad there, in the hush and the shadows, with the noises of Paris rising about one from without."
He ceased. She was frowning as she listened to him, with her resemblance to the pictured face in Paris strangely accentuated by the emotions that warred within her. For a minute neither of them spoke.
"I can see what you would have me see," she said at last, raising her head. "It belongs to that world in which I have now no part, Senior. No part at all. And it brings us no nearer to the message with which you are charged."
"Your pardon," said O'Neill. "It is a part of my message. And the rest is quickly told. It is Regnault's request, his prayer to you, that you will come to him, to your husband."
"Ah!" The constraint upon her features broke like ice under a quick sun. "I guessed it. I—to come to him! You should be his friend indeed, to be the bearer of such a message to me."
Her dark eyes, suddenly splendid, flashed at him with strong anger. The whole woman was transformed; she sat up in her chair, and her breast swelled. O'Neill saw before him the Lola of twenty years before.
He held up one hand to stay her.
"I should be his friend, as you say," he told her. "But he knows that it is not so. I came for two reasons: because now is not the time to be discriminating in my service to him, and also because I am glad to help him to do right. I will take back what answer you please, Senora, for I came here with no great hopes; but still I am glad I came, for the second reason."
"Help him to do right!" She repeated the words in a manner of perplexity. "What is it you mean to do right?"