“Who is Clara?”
This question threw him back again into silence, and he lay for more than a minute with his eyes closed. Then he opened them quickly, and glanced around with eager expectation, half rising as he did so from his pillow. A sigh quivered through his white lips as he sunk back, and said, in a sad voice,
“I thought she was here.”
For some time he lay with closed eyes, and his hands clasped across his bosom. Then looking up again, he asked,
“Hasn’t she come yet? It is time she was here.”
Bending toward the door, he listened attentively.
“She must be here soon.”
“Something has delayed her,” said Liston, falling in with the humor of the sick man. “Lie down again and try to sleep. Perhaps she will be here when you awake.”
“Hark!” said Ellison.
Liston bent his ear for a moment or two. Then the sound of feet moving along one of the distant passages was faintly heard.