“Only by sight. She had special charge of the poetry alcove, hadn’t she?”
“Yes. She belonged there of right. She was the soul and fragrance of all that the singers of springtime and youth have sung.” He sighed, shaking his grizzled head mournfully. “‘And all that glory now lies dimmed in death.’ It doesn’t seem believable.”
He rose and went to the window. Through the whorls of snow could be vaguely seen the outlines of the Worth house, looming on its corner. He stared at it musing.
“I’ve often wondered if she cared for him,” he murmured.
“For him? For Worth!” I exclaimed in amazement. “Were they friends?”
“Hardly more than acquaintances, I thought. But she left very strangely the day of his death and never came back.”
From the physician’s corner there came an indeterminate grunt.
“If that is a request for further information, Doctor, I can say that on the few occasions when they met here in the library, it was only in the line of her duties. He was interested in the twentieth-century poets. But even that interest died out. It was months before the—the tragedy that he stopped coming to the Library.”
“It was months before the tragedy that he stopped going anywhere, wasn’t it?” I asked.
“Yes. Nobody understood it; least of all, his friends. I even heard it hinted that he was suffering from some malady of the brain.” He turned inquiringly to the far, dim corner.