"Of course."
"The key, please."
The old woman hesitated, then she took the key out of her pocket. And at that moment Christina noticed something. There came from the floor above the sound of a voice speaking rapidly, incessantly, and indistinctly like a child talking to itself. An expression of amused and contemptuous malice broke upon the old woman's face and she handed over the key with greater readiness. "Much good may it do you!" said she, turning toward the kitchen.
Christina snatched it and fled upstairs. "Bring the coffee up here, please," she called over her shoulder.
For all her haste she paused at the top of the stair, and, with her hand over her heart, listened to the babbling voice. Then she turned to the right and knocked on a closed door. The voice ran on, heedlessly. "Nancy!" Christina called. "Nancy! It's I, Chris! Dear Nancy, I've come to take you home."
She was answered only by the endless repetition of some phrase, and unlocking the door, she went in.
She stepped into a charming, simple, sunny room, comfortably appointed, the windows open toward the road and their thin, flowery curtains stirring in the low, sultry wind. But on the inside of these curtains the windows were completely screened with poultry wire, and, over the door, the transom was wired, too. In the bed a young, slight girl half lay, half sat; her dark red curls had been gathered into a heavy braid and her blue eyes were blank with fever; she rocked her head from side to side upon the pillow with an indescribable weariness, and without breath, without change, with a monotonous and yet agitated inflection, she repeated over and over again the same phrases: "No, no, no, no! I don't believe it! Oh, Will, Will, Will, I don't believe it! You did it yourself! You did it yourself! You did it yourself! Ask Nancy Cornish!" And then, always with a little listening pause, "I'll promise anything!"
Christina shrank back against the door-jamb as if she were going to fall.
"Whatever does this mean? How came she like this? Oh, God!" she breathed, "what shall I do? What can I do?"
"Oh, Will, Will, Will!" said the other voice. "No, no, no, I don't believe it!"