Then you can imagine, perhaps, how startling, how much an answer to my unspoken question, was the sound which at that very moment came from the blue wall beyond the bed!
How can we analyze our sense of hearing? Do you know the sound of your wife’s footsteps? When you were young, could you pick out the approach of your father by the sound of his walk? Yes. But can you tell how? Are you able to say what it is that distinguishes it from the sounds a hundred other men would make going by your closed door? No. And neither can I tell you why I recognized this sound.
All that I can say is this,—the wall was opaque, the sound so faint as to be hardly heard, and yet I knew, as well as if the partition had been of plate glass, that the impact was that of a human body!...
There was something in this sound on the wall which drew an involuntary exclamation from me as the jar of forceps draws a tooth. And the sound of my voice, sharp and explosive, woke the child.
She stared up at me with that strange look of infinity—I must so describe it—infinity; then, as if she too had heard, she turned toward the wall.
“What do you see?” I asked near her ear.
She gave me one of her tender smiles and made a little gesture as if to say that she felt her inability to express something.
“It is there?” I asked, indicating the blank wall at last.
Her eyes sought that space of mysterious blue. Then she whispered, “Yes.”
I must say that, though I knew no more than I had at first, I derived some satisfaction from the mere fact that for the second time Virginia had confirmed the extraordinary belief or fancy which had possessed prosaic MacMechem, the unimaginative Miss Peters, and, finally, myself. It seemed to justify positive steps in an investigation; after a further examination of the little body on the bed which offered still better evidence of an improvement in the course of the malady, I left the Marburys’ door, determined to settle the question once and for all.