“I wish it were I!” Perkins blurted out. “I wish it were! Why can't we do something for her—for him! You love her, too, don't you?”
“Yes, I love her; maybe not with your unselfish devotion, but I have your desire to be of service.”
Perkins shook his head. “It's all up,” he sobbed. “Think of it—Margaret dying!”
Philip regarded his friend pityingly, and took to pacing back and forth in front of him.
Imperceptibly he moderated his step until he no more than tiptoed up and down the hall.
Perkins, worn and wretched with four nights of sleeplessness, slumbered against the newel post, his hands idly folded in his lap, his hair roughened and disordered, his dress creased and crumpled, his whole attitude one of utter dejection.
The solitary gas-jet in the center of the hall burned feebly.
The light, stealing through the colored globe, imparted to Perkins' features a semblance of shrunken ghastliness. More than once Philip had a compelling impulse to turn it up, and had stepped to the chandelier to do so only to be resisted by an invisible force that possessed him, a chilling apathy that revolted at any change.
The least noise had a powerful fascination for him. The ticking of a clock—and numberless clocks appeared to be ticking with jarring clangor, some close by, some far off in the distance—or the footfall of an occasional belated wayfarer on the street without, would cause him to pause and listen breathlessly with a vague unexplainable fear. His sensations were so distressing that for the sake of personal contact he wedged in at Perkins' elbow on the steps. In spite of his care he aroused his companion, who stirred fretfully to ask sleepily: “What is it? Do they want me?”
“I wished to sit down. I didn't intend to disturb you.”