Could it really be Nigel's? This time there was in it a sound that was faintly familiar to Isaacson—a sound to which he listened almost as a man may regard a shadow and say to himself, "Is that shadow cast by my friend?"
A dress rustled. And the tiny noise was followed by the creak of a basket chair.
"Don't you think you're a little better to-night?" said Mrs. Armine.
The other sighed.
"No."
"Doctor Baring Hartley said you would recover rapidly."
"Ruby, he doesn't understand my case. He can't understand it."
"But he seemed so certain. And he's got a great reputation in America."
"But he doesn't understand. To-night I feel—when you were playing 'Gerontius' I felt that—that I must soon go. 'Proficiscere, anima Christiana, de hoc mundo'—I felt as if somewhere that was being said to me."
"Nigel!"